October 01, 2012: Volume LXXX, No 19

277

KIRKUS V O L . L X X X , N O.

19

1

OCTOBER

2012

REVIEWS

Also In This Issue

Wintertime Picture-Book Roundup p. 2277 Q&A with Meggan Abbott on DARE ME p. 2188

Kate White

Former Cosmo Editor and Best-Selling Author on ‘How I Did it’ p. 2292

CHILDREN’S & TEEN

Bartholomew Biddle and the Very Big Wind

by Gary Ross Gary Ross and Matthew Myers conjure a wind that takes a little boy on a big adventure p. 2269

NONFICTION

1775

by Kevin Phillips An impressively authoritative work on our nation’s founding p. 2247

FICTION

Young Philby

by Robert Littell An exciting Cold-War novel p. 2192

Anniversaries: A Clockwork Orange Turns 50 B Y G RE G O RY MC NA M EE

Fifty years ago, the world was going to end any day. Some madman, somewhere, was going to launch a missile, or drop a bomb, or fire a rocket, and bang, crash, and sizzle, that was going to be it. The madman was going to be Russian or American, possibly Chinese, backed by good German science. Only a handful of people would be left, and one of them was going to be Vincent Price.

Fifty years ago, some writers took a lighthearted view of the apocalypse, turning in books, plays, and movies the likes of The Mouse That Roared, The Bed-Sitting Room, and Dr. Strangelove.

Others were less sanguine. One was Anthony Burgess, musician and linguist, who had been reading unsettling books such as B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and pondering a future ruled by teenagers with access to money and technology, inhabiting a world in which the Soviets had won the Cold War, if by a Pyrrhic victory. Such a world would be cold, gray, rainy and shabby, but it would have some neat things, including fast cars that growled in the night, loud stereos, and lots and lots of opportunities to ingest psychotropic drugs.

The world Burgess imagined was that of his 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, its streets ruled by young thugs tolerated by a distant but watchful state. These youngsters spoke a florid English that might have done Shakespeare proud, save that half of its vocabulary was a Russified argot called Nadsat: “I could slooshy cries of agony and this writer bleeding veck that Georgie and Pete held on to nearly got loose howling bezoomny with the filthiest of slovos.”

Shakespearean, yes, though other writers figure in the mix: One of the protagonist Alex’s “droogies,” or gang mates, wears a “Peebee Shelley” mask, whatever that might look like, while their writer victim is pounding away at a manuscript called—yes—A Clockwork Orange, which Alex promptly tears up, the product of “another intelligent type bookman like that we’d fillied with some hours back.”

So not just a cold, sterile, soulless world governed by a corporate state, but also one hostile to books and writers. Hmmm…

Burgess’ book is better known through Stanley Kubrick’s film version than by the original, reissued this month in an anniversary edition by Norton. It is testimony to Burgess’ powers of imagination that it scared even Kubrick, who softened up some of the rougher edges—including the fact that, though played in the film by 28-year-old Malcolm McDowell, tender young Alex was “still only fifteen.”

Vladimir Putin doubtless still harbors dreams of Soviet dominion, though he’s had to make do with suppressing three young girls who play music under the decidedly clockwork-ian name Pussy Riot. But if some of Burgess’s prophecies did not materialize—and, in this anniversary year, it’s worth noting that A Clockwork Orange was just one of a projected series of imagined futures that would have made J.G. Ballard wince—others most certainly did. Put a Peebee Shelley mask on Justin Bieber, and you’ll see.

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This Issue’s Contributors

Maude Adjarian • Mark Athitakis • Michael Autrey • Joseph Barbato • Gerald Bartell • Amy Boaz • Lee E. Cart • Marnie Colton • Dave DeChristopher • Gregory F. DeLaurier • David Delman • Kathleen Devereaux • Bobbi Dumas • Daniel Dyer • Lisa Elliott • Julie Foster • Peter Franck • Sean Gibson • Judith Gire • Peter Heck • Jeff Hoffman • BJ Hollars • Laura Jenkins • Robert M. Knight • Paul Lamey • Louise Leetch • Judith Leitch • Peter Lewis • Elsbeth Lindner • Raina Lipsitz • Joe Maniscalc • Don McLeese • Gregory McNamee • Brett Milano • Carole Moore • Clayton Moore • Liza Nelson • Mike Newirth • John Noffsinger • Sarah Norris • Mike Oppenheim • Jim Piechota • Christofer D. Pierson • Gary Presley • David Rapp • Kristen Bonardi Rapp • Karen Rigby • Erika Rohrbach • Lloyd Sachs • Bob Sanchez • Michael Sandlin • Rosanne Simeone • Elaine Sioufi • Wendy Smith • Margot E. Spangenberg • Andria Spencer • Sarah Suksiri • Matthew Tiffany • Claire Trazenfeld • Steve Weinberg • Rodney Welch • Carol White • Chris White • Joan Wilentz • Alex Zimmerman

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contents fiction Index to Starred Reviews.................................................. p. 2179 REVIEWS....................................................................................... p. 2179 Q&A WITH megan abbott...................................................... p. 2188

The Kirkus Star is awarded to books of remarkable merit, as determined by the impartial editors of Kirkus.

Mystery...................................................................................... p. 2203 Science Fiction & Fantasy.................................................. p. 2215

nonfiction Index to Starred Reviews..................................................p. 2219 REVIEWS.......................................................................................p. 2219 Q&A WITH Will Schwalbe....................................................p. 2234

children’s & teen Index to Starred Reviews..................................................p. 2257 REVIEWS.......................................................................................p. 2257 Q&A WITH Ian McDonald......................................................p. 2274 WinterTIME book round-up...............................................p. 2277 interactive e-books.............................................................p. 2281

indie Index to Starred Reviews...................................................p. 2283 REVIEWS........................................................................................p. 2283

Kate white: how I did it....................................................... p. 2292

Hollywood chronicler William J. Mann divulges the blood, sweat and tears that propelled Barbra Streisand to stardom. See the starred review on p. 2243. | kirkus.com | contents | 1 October 2012 | 2177

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on the web

w w w. k i r k u s r e v i e w s . c o m / b l o g s Here’s what’s online at kirkus.com....

Autumn’s arrived in earnest, bringing with it cloudless blue skies, vivid foliage and crisp breezes—just the sort of weather that makes you want to curl up by the fire with a good book.

Help narrow down your choices by checking out a few of the titles we’ve featured on Kirkusreviews.com this month.

As the dividing line between the YA and adult markets has become more and more narrow— and the YA market has become more and more profitable—it’s become less and less unusual for adult authors to take a stab at writing for the teen audience. Clive Barker, Sherman Alexie, Joyce Carol Oates: All have thrown their hat into the ring, and they’ve met with varying degrees of success. Now, Elizabeth George, the author of the hugely popular Inspector Lynley mysteries, joins the fray with The Edge of Nowhere, a paranormal story set in the Pacific Northwest.

Twilight, it’s not. But it may be just as problematic...

Revisit the classics. Arthur Conan Doyle may be best known for Detective Sherlock Holmes, the character that defined his writing career. But while Conan Doyle and Holmes have ever since helped to define the mystery genre, the former is also known for another character, Professor George Edward Challenger. The brazen adventurer pops in and out of South American jungles, wrangles with dinosaurs and journeys to the center of the Earth. Challenger, the star of several Conan Doyle early science-fiction novels, exemplified the immediate post-Victorian era in England. Take a look back at 1911’s The Lost World and marvel.

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2178 | 1 October 2012 | on the web | kirkus.com |

Continue to follow our Indie publishing series featuring some of today’s top self-published authors, including Melissa Foster and Barbara Freethy, as well as signed authors like Christopher Meeks. Also online this month, readers can find our romance columnist (and signed author) Sarah Wendell’s take on things to avoid when self-publishing your work.

Each week, we feature authors’ exclusive personal essays on how they achieved their success in publishing. It’s a mustread resource for any aspiring author interested in getting their books out there. for the latest news releases every day, please go online to Kirkus.com. It’s where our editors and contributing blog partners bring you the best in science fiction, mysteries and thrillers, literary fiction and nonfiction, teen books and children’s books, Indie publishing and more.

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fiction These titles earned the Kirkus Star: YOUNG PHILBY by Robert Littell.............................................. p. 2192 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD by Jay Neugeboren........... p. 2193 THE CASSANDRA PROJECT

by Jack McDevitt and Mike Resnick.......................................... p. 2216

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

Neugeborgen, Jay Two Dollar Radio (282 pp.) $17.00 Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-937512-02-6

CHINESE WHISKERS

Aiyar, Pallavi St. Martin’s (240 pp.) $22.99 | Dec. 11, 2012 978-1-250-01448-1

Two cats in Beijing witness recent events—the SARS epidemic, rapid industrialization, the Olympic Games— from the comfort of their Hutong courtyard.

When Soyabean is still a kitten in the Xu household, he is adopted by Mr. and Mrs. A, waiguo Ren, or foreigners, who live in a large courtyard house in old Beijing. Soon after, Tofu arrives, a dustbin cat, rescued by the animal league and brought to the courtyard as company for Soyabean. The two cats have escaped a life of hardship in a country that regards pampered pets with suspicion, though with a rapidly growing middle class, that is beginning to change. Narrated in alternating chapters by Soyabean, a handsome, lazy ginger tom, and Tofu, a small dark cat who prefers the world from her perch in the courtyard’s pomegranate tree, the novel cat-walks between credibility and fantasy, just as these animal stories do. The cats understand human speech and other animals, and though their knowledge is limited, their intelligence isn’t; not unlike the way we view our pets anyway. Soyabean grows into a beautiful fat cat, so much so that he’s hired to star in a cat-food commercial.

Soyabean’s already considerable ego (and girth) grows as he becomes a star for Maomi Deluxe. Tofu is suspicious, and rightly so; she overhears Xiao Xu confess that Maomi Deluxe is made from melamine, and cats are getting sick. One evening, Tofu is kidnapped by a band of rogues convinced cats are the cause of the SARS epidemic. She escapes the van and finds shelter with provincial laborers. Will Tofu find her way home? Will Soyabean be able to warn the nation about Maomi Deluxe? A gentle happiness abounds in this simple tale, set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing China.

Modern consumerism clashes with traditional Chinese culture, as observed by two cats in this small charmer. (b/w illustrations throughout)

| kirkus.com | fiction | 1 October 2012 | 2179

“Berry is a maker of beautiful sentences, lightly touched.” from a place in time

A PLACE IN TIME Twenty Stories of Port William Berry, Wendell Counterpoint (368 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-1-61902-049-8

The septuagenarian Berry makes a return visit to the genial farm community that much of his fiction has called home.

When Berry (Hannah Coulter, 2004, etc.) hasn’t been writing poetry or essays on farming life, he’s written fiction set in Port William, Ky., which rivals William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County in terms of its breadth of imagined historical detail.

These 20 new stories feature familiar characters from earlier novels and stories, but the reader needn’t have read those to get pleasure out of these. That said, the pleasures of this book are modest: Many of these stories are slight fables, flickering with only the slightest plot then softly ending, consistently well-drawn but not always memorable. One of the most potent stories, for instance, is markedly subtle: “A Desirable Woman” tracks the intersection of a pastor’s wife and a young farmhand shortly before the start of World War II, and the story turns on the young man’s unrequited crush on the woman shortly before he’s sent off to war. “Sold” has a similarly soft-focus, nostalgic cast, narrated by an elderly woman recalling the accumulations that are about to be sold at auction before she enters a nursing home. (The stories are arranged in the order of their chronological setting, from 1864 to 2008, but events largely cling to the WWII and postwar era.) The better, more energetic stories have the comic, homespun feel of tall tales, as in “A New Day,” which climaxes in a competition between two horse teams dragging bricks, or “A Burden,” about the antics of a drunk relation.

Berry is a maker of beautiful sentences, lightly touched with Southern dialect and soberly concerned with the future of the agrarian spirit. But Berry’s characters and tone alike feel muted.

WOES OF THE TRUE POLICEMAN

Bolaño, Roberto Translated by Wimmer, Natasha Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-374-26674-5 The much admired Chilean writer’s final, unfinished novel is a seductive grab bag filled with the mysteries of sexuality and literature.

Bolaño began work on the novel in the 1980s and revisited it until he died in 2003, at the age of 50. It’s presented here in five sections, of which the first is the most tightly structured, introducing the protagonist and the germ of a plot. Amalfitano 2180 | 1 October 2012 | fiction | kirkus.com |

is a middle-aged professor of literature and philosophy. The Chilean has spent most of his life on the move, a militant leftist too hot for some campuses. (He also appears in Bolaño’s masterpiece 2666.) It’s not politics but a sex scandal that ends his career at the University of Barcelona. The professor had started attending salons honoring Catalan literature. Their organizer, Padilla, is a young, tough, promiscuous gay man and a committed poet; for him, sex and poetry are indivisible. He seduces Amalfitano, who has never slept with a man before; the love of his life was his dead wife, Edith, who gave him a daughter, Rosa.

Fired by the university, Amalfitano finds another position in Santa Teresa, Mexico. The next three sections are much more diffuse. One of them is devoted to the French novelist Arcimboldi. (Vonnegut had Kilgore Trout; Bolaño has the Frenchman.) Amalfitano seeks literary validation for his newfound homosexuality (Mann, Rimbaud) and explains stumblingly to his beautiful teenage daughter that if communism can collapse, so can his heterosexual regime. Rosa, unconvinced, abandons books for videos, an equally shocking volte-face by this lifelong book lover. The final section suggests new problems for Amalfitano in Mexico. The chief of police arranges with his twin, the university president, to have his new professor tailed. A young cop (the titular policeman?) goes to work, but this storyline must compete with Mexican history and a lively exchange of letters between Amalfitano and Padilla.

Nevermind the lack of a resolution. The robust affirmation that the pursuit of literature is ennobling is sufficient recompense.

GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN

Brunt, Douglas Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) $24.00 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-1-4516-7259-6 A bond trader living the high life at Bear Stearns starts to see the writing on the wall over the course of a single tumultuous winter.

With his noir-ish debut novel, former broker (and spouse of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly) Brunt delves not just into the mechanics of the financial crash, but also the mindset that created the explosive state of affairs. Set at the end of 2005, the novel’s entry into the financial world comes via narrator Nick Farmer, a 35-year-old married bond trader. The guy, to put it mildly, is burnt. “There is one noble thing about crime,” he explains. “It is the only true meritocracy on the planet. No one in the crime industry cares whether you went to Harvard or dropped out of the fifth grade.

They don’t look at resumes—you eat what you kill.” His life is a textbook case of arrested development, full of nightclubs, coke in bathroom stalls and banter with his crew over items like “stripper glitter.” It’s a trade where making millions just shows you’re incapable of multimillions. Despite his impending selfimmolation, Nick steps up when a maladjusted but brilliant analyst asks him to back his report revealing the massive risks of the

firm’s practices. He also comes to the rescue when his younger reports do a six-figure job on a hotel room one night, covering for kids who can pay the damages out of their last bonus. In the meantime, he starts a flirtation with Rebecca James, a CNBC reporter who’s digging into the dirty laundry, even as he physically threatens the guy he thinks is having sex with his wife.

A smart shot at the absurdity of Wall Street and the long fall that brought us all down. (Events in New York.

Agents: Lane Zachary and Todd Shuster)

GODSENT

Burton, Richard Arcade (448 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-1-61145-706-3 Moving through recent history into the near future, Burton’s debut novel finds Kate Skylar certain that God is real.

Proof grows in her belly.

Kate’s pregnant. No one believes her, but she’s never let a man’s seed touch her body. Kate’s the only child of a wealthy South Carolina Catholic couple. The family’s patriarch, “Papa Jim” Osbourne, owns Oz Corporation, “the largest faith-based prison construction and management company in the nation.”

A compelled abortion fails. Discovering the pregnancy, Papa Jim, prominent member of The Way, an anti-Vatican II organization, hides Kate in an Italian convent. She gives birth, but she’s told her son, Ethan, is stillborn. Within the church, two insidious forces battle. Using confessional secrets and computers, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith awaits the Antichrist, in the meantime killing male children born to women claiming sinless conception. The Conversatio, a clandestine ancient group, believes a second virgin birth will bring the divine Son of Man into the world. Ethan grows up in Kansas, adopted son of Conversatio agents. His friends are Peter, whom he converts from being a bully, and Maggie, a girl he loves. Ethan’s revealed as the Son of Man amid riots and worship, with the malevolent Grand Inquisitor, the Congregation’s self-aware computer evolved from J.H. Müller’s 1786 difference engine, seeking to find him. Its parallel processing networks leave “the Congregation’s grasp of computer science and programming far in advance of the rest of the world.”

Entwined in politics and commanding a private army known as the “munchies,” Papa Jim has its counterpart, AEGIS (Artificially Engineered Global Intelligence System), and he’s intent upon establishing a Catholic theocracy. While Ethan preaches love and forgiveness, the Congregation plans his assassination and a priest/computer scientist ventures deep within the Vatican’s basement to confront a saint in a “noötic field,” only to hear the Grand Inquisitor ask him to receive its confession.

With its deeper, more sophisticated narrative, classifying Burton’s brilliantly imaginative effort as a Da Vinci Code thriller sells it short.

THE BIG EXIT

Carnoy, David Overlook (320 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 11, 2012 978-1-59020-515-0 Carnoy (Knife Music, 2008) heads to high-tech Silicon Valley for his sophomore thriller, but the story is as old-fashioned as betrayal, greed and murder.

Colorful characters abound in Carnoy’s legal caper. Richie Forman was big in dot-com marketing before ending up in prison. There was a bachelor party for Richie, after which he and his best friend, Mark McGregor, headed out in Richie’s classic Cadillac. What followed was a missed red light and a young woman dead. Richie’s blood alcohol was .12, but he was certain he wasn’t driving.

Convicted anyway, he spent years in the pen. While Richie was doing hard time, his financee, Beth Hill, gave in to the wiles of the best friend, Mark, and married him. Now Richie’s out, making a living as a Sinatra impersonator and volunteering at the Exoneration Foundation run by the DNA Dude, attorney Marty Lowenstein. Mark, still in the dot-com business but on apparent shaky financial ground, has been murdered. The police have suspects, including Beth, but the police like Richie the most. Enter Hank Madden, a detective involved in the accident investigation, and Beth’s attorney, Carolyn Dupuy, the prosecutor who put Richie in the clink and who is now coping with an off-and-on doctor boyfriend and a ticking biological clock.

Then there’s the muckraker guy, Tom Bender, a Drudge-digitalclone with a must-read website covering the dot-com business world. Carnoy knows the territory perfectly, and with judicious use of clever phrases that never distract from the crime caper, he’s spot on with his characterizations, all of which seem both archetypal and yet sparkling with individual personalities and interesting back stories. Add an intriguing semi-red herring or two, and the climax comes with a satisfying twist.

A first-rate crime caper.

THE LADY OF SECRETS

Carroll, Susan Ballantine (448 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Dec. 11, 2012 978-0-345-50295-7 A practitioner of white magic becomes embroiled, against her will, in the Guy Fawkes conspiracy.

In this latest of Carroll’s popular series featuring witches, good and evil, of late-Renaissance Europe, the protagonist is Meg Wolfe, the recently anointed Lady of Faire Isle.

Although her mother, the late Cassandra, leader of the sinister Silver Rose coven, had tried to groom Meg as her successor sorceress, Meg opted for the Lady’s mostly benign duties, leading an isolated group of “cunning women,” healing with herbs, and | kirkus.com | fiction | 1 October 2012 | 2181

undoing spells cast by bad witches. When she’s summoned to Brittany to investigate a demonic possession, she is enlisted by an English knight, Sir Patrick Graham, to lift a curse plaguing King James. Once in London, escorted by Patrick and his friend, the dissolute but charming physician Armagil Blackwood, Meg regrets leaving the serenity of Faire Isle. Dreams and other clues reveal to her that Sir Patrick may actually be Robert Brody, whose twin sister was burned at the stake for witchcraft years before, along with an old crone, Tamsin, who had believed the condemned duo would be pardoned by James. When James demurred, Tamsin cursed him and the Stuart line from the pyre.

Could Patrick be using Meg to win the king’s confidence while plotting treasonous vengeance? Outwardly loutish but secretly sexy Armagil tries to warn her, but when he touches a poisoned Silver Rose found in the garden of her lodgings, she is distracted by the need to save his life then consummate their mutual attraction. When Patrick catches them together, he’s incensed, but his accusations hint at fears Meg already harbors. What if Cassandra isn’t dead after all? What if her coven has returned, bent on declaring Meg their all-powerful queen, Megaera?

What if Guido (Guy) Fawkes’ gunpowder goes stale before he can blow up Parliament?

Skillful story weaving insures that readers will only know the answers to the book’s questions at the end.

(Agent: Andrea Cirillo)

THE VENICE CONSPIRACY

Christer, Sam Overlook (368 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 8, 2012 978-1-4683-0049-9

The latest thriller from Christer.

The novel has two storylines, reinforcing the idea that evil is forever. In 666 B.C., the wife of a seer is raped, and the child she later bears is the rapist’s. Meanwhile, she and her husband create a set of silver tablets representing the gates of hell. Evil forces lust after their creation and are still hunting for it in 18th-century Venice.

In the present-day storyline, 32-year-old Father Tom Shaman (A priest named Shaman. Get it?) accidentally kills two thugs in Los Angeles while trying to rescue a woman who is being raped. Exonerated but distraught, he quits the priesthood and goes to Venice to start a new life. Immediately, he finds a dead body and then a live one—a beautiful woman who picks him up in a cafe and promptly deflowers him. The dead girl has 666 wounds in her body. Police quickly dismiss Tom as a suspect but persuade him to consult on the possibility that a Satanist is on the loose. That evil number crops up again and again, including a 666-square-foot room and the climactic event taking place at 6 a.m. on June 6. The novel is even divided into six parts.

By the end, the reader is spitting sixes. The other maddening matter is the abundance of short, declarative sentences. And sentence fragments galore. And the ubiquitous present tense.

The novel’s premise isn’t a bad one; Satan is one tough hombre 2182 | 1 October 2012 | fiction | kirkus.com |

whose power on Earth rivals God’s. Every earthly disaster is the work of Satan, who seems quite able to fight the deity to a draw.

There’s plenty of good material for Christer to work with, and he deserves credit for his forensic and historical research. If only he wouldn’t whack the reader upside the head 666 times with his symbolism.

This book could have been far better.

THE CLEANER

Cleave, Paul Atria (400 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Dec. 11, 2012 978-1-4516-7779-9 A detailed look inside the mind of a remorseless serial killer penned by a New Zealand-based writer who specializes in gore and the gruesome side of crime.

Joe, whose name is repeated endlessly by the characters in this book, is a janitor at the Christchurch, New Zealand, police station, where he scrubs urinals, mops floors and vacuums while eavesdropping on the department’s investigation into a serial murderer that preys on women. Joe’s interest in the killings is not academic or even a matter of morbid curiosity; he is the very busy and exceedingly brutal perpetrator of these homicides. But he’s not watching the police to see how close they’re getting at the moment; instead his curiosity is based on the murder of a woman who is not his own victim. Incensed that a copycat is also on the loose, Joe decides that the extra murder is the perfect cover for him. His plan is simple: find out who did it and pin all of the homicides on the other killer. Since Joe has access to police records and meetings, he sets out to find out who, if anyone, the cops are looking at as a suspect, but there are complications along the way, including Sally, another janitor who likes him too much for his own good. Cleave’s universe is populated with a palpable brutality. The glimpses of insight he offers into his killers’ thoughts are simultaneously disturbing and fascinating in a sick sort of way. As a writer, he knows how to grab the reader’s attention, but even fans of darker thrillers will find the level of violence in this book disturbing. Cleave has no boundaries he won’t cross and no compunctions about writing solely sacrificial characters into his storyline. Except for the constant repetition of Joe’s name, the book is well-narrated and interesting, even though it sloshes around in buckets of blood with disturbing cruelty.

This story is the literary equivalent of standing on the street beneath a skyscraper watching a disturbed soul teeter on a ledge, threatening to jump.

THE COLONY

Colucci, A.J. Dunne/St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-250-00129-0 Mutant ants—millions of ’em—have taken over New York City, killing tens of thousands of humans, and only one thing can stop them: a special formula synthesized from a queen’s pheromones that makes the ants turn on each other.

But will entomologist Kendra Hart be able to dose the invading army with her special brew before the military goes ahead with a plan to nuke Manhattan?

In her grimly entertaining debut, Colucci savors her descriptions of the ants, which are 8 inches long, can move at eight miles an hour, have pincers, mandibles and armor—and, in the case of the queens, brains 100 times bigger than normal ants.

These ants travel in frightening black waves, weigh down people until the humans can’t stand up, and with each bite spread toxins that cause swelling, shock and death. The upside of the scenario for Kendra is that the ants attack only during the day.

At night, they hibernate. Leaving the safety of a secret underground bunker, Kendra is lucky to find a queen inside an elevator shaft—but not before being poisoned by ants and spared death via an injection of epinephrine. She receives it from her ex-husband, Pulitzer-winning ant authority Paul O’Keefe, who summoned her from New Mexico. They’re joined by computer whiz Jeremy Rudeau, Paul’s longtime rival and the man who came between them. Love reblooms to the creepy sound of ants moving en masse. Until its somewhat pat ending, the book transcends its horror-movie basis with descriptions of the ants in action and of the science behind the Siafu moto, which is part fire ant and part African strain. One only wishes the political types here weren’t so cartoonish.

Not a book for picnic-goers, this tale may have you rethinking those warnings about fire ants heading north.

partner. And unless Michael and KC succeed, a superpotent toxin will threaten the entire free world. Michael’s blackmailer, U.S. Army Col. Isaac Lucas, is so desperate to recover the diary and compass, he condones coldblooded killings. Lucas’ chief opponent is the ruthless Chinese underworld leader, Xiao— who turns out to be his brother, Jacob. When they were kids, their Chinese mother fled to her homeland with Jacob to escape their violent American father, who was obsessed with translating a Chinese document he acquired while stationed with the military in Hong Kong. Still torn by the murder of his mother for the diary, Xiao wants vengeance in a big way. Swords separate heads from torsos, identities are switched, KC is poisoned, the storied past of warships, palaces and Madama Butterfly intrudes upon the present. Whether abused, neglected or abandoned as children, most of the characters in this sprawling, action-filled book have much to overcome.

Doetsch’s series is running out of fresh ideas and exotic settings, but those who aren’t overly familiar with his formula or bored with the bland Michael St. Pierre will find this book reasonably diverting.

THE THIEVES OF LEGEND

Doetsch, Richard Atria (416 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-1-4165-9898-5

In Doetsch’s fourth Thieves thriller (The Thieves of Darkness, 2010, etc.), world-class thieves Michael St. Pierre and his girlfriend KC Ryan—both of whom can scale the steepest heights and crack the stiffest security codes—find themselves in parallel peril in different parts of China.

Unless Michael, under duress in Macau, recovers an ancient diary containing deadly secrets, KC will be killed. Unless KC, controlled by a cold female assassin in the Forbidden City, recovers a special compass tied to the diary, it’s curtains for her | kirkus.com | fiction | 1 October 2012 | 2183

“Dunmore offers up an eerie story about postwar England.” from the greatcoat

THE GREATCOAT

Dunmore, Helen Atlantic Monthly (208 pp.) $24.00 | Oct. 5, 2012 978-0-8021-2060-1 After a grimly realistic portrayal of postwar East Berlin in The Betrayal (2010), Dunmore offers up an eerie story about postwar England that may, or may not, be a ghost story.

In 1952, newlyweds Isabel and Philip move to East Riding where Philip has taken his first job as a doctor. While Philip plunges into his work, Isabel is lonely and adrift in her own life. Mrs. Atkinson, the dour elderly landlady, is always pacing the floor above, and Isabel’s downstairs apartment is dank and cold; looking in a closet for an extra blanket, she comes across a military greatcoat and wraps herself in it for warmth. Another night not long afterward, she wakes to a tapping at the window and finds a young pilot staring in and calling her nickname, Issy. The pilot begins visiting regularly. Whether he’s a ghost or figment of her imagination remains unclear. Together they visit a nearby World War II airfield; she sees abandoned disrepair, but to him, the base is in full wartime operation. They make love. Afterward, she stands in front of her house with him unseen by the local woman. She inexplicably knows his name is Alec and that he is waiting to fly a bombing mission to Germany that has been delayed.

She finds herself increasingly filled with another woman’s memories—a farmhouse, a baby, Alec. Meanwhile, she and the touchingly drawn Philip repeatedly fumble their attempts at love and intimacy. When Isabel witnesses Alec and Mrs. Atkinson share an exchange of terrible longing, she sees why Alec actually has appeared.

The slight tale crumbles under too much scrutiny but beautifully expresses emotional longing in ways both natural and supernatural.

THE LEADING INDICATORS

Easterbrook, Gregg Dunne/St. Martin’s (224 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-250-01173-2

Easterbrook’s (Sonic Boom, 2009, etc.) latest social commentary as literary fiction filters leverage buyouts, derivatives marketing and multimillion-dollar CEO bonuses through the lens of one wave-riding family.

Easterbrook isn’t subtle. Helot, the family surname, is ancient Greek for serf or slave. Posed as the author’s symbolic question is whether this serfdom is voluntary. Life, after all, is pleasantly luxurious as the story begins in 2006. Easterbrook’s narrative tone is clinically ironic as he slides a slice of Helot life under the microscope. Tom is important at Corsair Assets, 2184 | 1 October 2012 | fiction | kirkus.com |

a private equity firm. Margo works a $2,500 coffee maker and chauffeurs daughters Caroline and Megan to fencing lessons and birthday parties. It’s the Reaganomics dream until Ken, Tom’s CEO in this world of debt swaps and derivatives, comes to dinner at the Helot house. Ken casually confesses to having looted Corsair into bankruptcy. Tom’s career enters a downward spiral, first spinning into consulting jobs with spare hope of permanent hiring, then to not-very-hopeful Internet startups, to commission sales at a big-box store, to temporary work as go-between for inept and corrupt management and recalcitrant and corrupt unions. Margo segues from at-home mother in a trendy McMansion to flirting for tips as a Hooters restaurant server. Meantime, Easterbrook itemizes, dissects and audits this world we have wrought: banking and investing; corporate life; health care and education; the ugly dichotomy between executive retention bonuses and an unlivable minimum wage; automation and manufacturing; consumerism and class distinction and social status; and nearly every other factor driving our “fast, flexible, kanban, sigma-six economy,” where people are expendable. Substitute class warfare for racial tension and what might be read as a sardonic, perhaps morbid, personal salvation narrative becomes a post-meltdown Bonfire of the Vanities.

Indicting the AIG-Bear Stearns-Lehman Brothers’ looting of the American dream, Easterbrook offers a musthave, Sub-Zero-refrigerator appraisal of what the Smartest Guys in the Room did to the American dream.

CITY OF DARK MAGIC

Flyte, Magnus Penguin (464 pp.) $16.00 paperback | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-14-312268-5 The riddle of Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” alchemy and clandestine love fuse in this fast-paced, funny, romantic mystery.

Meg Howrey (The Cranes Dance, 2012, etc.) and television writer Christina Lynch have combined their talents, writing under the pseudonym Magnus Flyte. Brilliant musicologist Sarah Weston has been summoned to Prague to catalog Beethoven manuscripts at the Lobkowicz Palace. How can she refuse? Her mentor, Professor Sherbatsky, has defenestrated himself from the palace, and a dwarf has appeared at her door, encouraging her to go and presenting her with a pillbox containing what appears to be a toenail clipping. Yet Prague is a dangerous place, a place where the walls between worlds have thinned to precariously fragile layers. But Sarah cannot believe Sherbatsky committed suicide, and she is eager to study the manuscripts, so she begins to pack. Before she can even get to the airport, however, someone breaks into her apartment. Nothing appears to be stolen, but an ominous alchemical symbol has been drawn on her kitchen ceiling. Once in Prague, events turn both stranger and sexier. The castle lies at the center of a dispute between two branches of the Lobkowicz family. As Sarah dutifully sifts through the manuscripts,

she discovers clues not only about the “Immortal Beloved,” but also Sherbatsky’s strange behavior leading up to his death. The other scholars hired that summer to catalog the castle’s contents suspect Sherbatsky of drug use, and Sarah finds herself experimenting with the time-warping drug. She also accidentally has anonymous sex in the bathroom, joins forces with a 400-year-old dwarf, lands in jail and falls in love with the prince.

But Sarah has also attracted an enemy, someone who will stop at nothing to keep Sarah from discovering a secret of perhaps international proportions.

Even the minor characters are drawn ingeniously in this exuberant, surprising gem.

TIER ONE WILD

Fury, Dalton St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-312-66838-9 Fury (Black Site, 2012, etc.) again enlists gung-ho Delta Force Maj. Kolt “Racer” Raynor for anti-terrorist action, and this time the threat involves missiles and airliners rather than forted-up bad guys on the ground.

With the once-cashiered Racer cautioned about the maverick decisions that got him canned, the major and team are HALOdropped into India, where an airliner has been hijacked. Forced to land on the 767 as it moves onto the runway, the four harpoon their way into the cabin and dispose of the bad guys. Team member Stitch has a finger shot off in the melee. That leaves Racer, Digger and Slapshot to detour to chaotic Libya and extract a U.N. investigator who has uncovered post-revolution looting of Igla-S shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Curtis, CIA on station, doesn’t like Racer’s rough-and-tumble solution. No problem, since the U.N. geek is safe. Racer’s team is then sent to Cairo because a former agent from Libya’s nefarious Jamahiriya Security Organization, Aref Saleh, has gone rogue and is distributing the airplane-killers to bad guys. In Cairo, Racer’s team liaisons with a resentful Curtis, and things go south because of lackadaisical CIA Operations Security. Enter David Wade Doyle, aka Daoud al-Amriki, California boy turned jihadist. Racer and al-Amriki met in Pakistan during the mission that earned Racer’s return to Delta. Now, alAmriki is in Yemen training English-speaking jihadists to infiltrate the U.S. and bring down airliners with the Igla-S missiles. There’s more scoop about Delta Team operations in this Fury effort and a separate narrative about female members joining the Joint Special Operations Command, with Cindy Bird, code name Hawk, sent on the Egyptian reconnoiter. The bad guys get missiles into Mexico but are stymied at Nuevo Laredo in a messy Racer-led firefight. All but al-Amriki are KIA. Posse Comitatus keeps Delta from in-country operation, but Racer and recuperating fellow officer TJ, another Delta who hates al-Amriki, take leave to D.C. and tie up a perfect-coincidence termination.

Action-adventure from an author who’s been at the sharp end of the spear.

TOO BRIGHT TO HEAR TOO LOUD TO SEE

Garey, Juliann Soho (304 pp.) $25.00 | Dec. 26, 2012 978-1-61695-129-0

Screenwriter Garey’s no-nonsense debut about a man who struggles with bipolar disorder is gripping and straightforward.

Greyson Todd is a financially successful and respected Hollywood studio executive who suffers from the same debilitating mental illness that once tortured his father. Recalling his mother’s agony and the hatred he felt as he dealt with his father and his early life, Todd is terrified, with good reason, that he will suffer the same fate. One evening, he simply abandons his wife and 8-year-old daughter and begins a frenzied excursion that takes him to exotic locales around the world, where he indulges in erotic acts and self-gratifying excesses that frequently end in violence. He gets duped by Bedouins, roams sex bazaars in Thailand, impersonates a professor and marries the widow of an AIDs victim in Africa. Following

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one destructive episode, Todd acknowledges that he is his own personal tsunami, an apt description for the devastation he causes himself and others in his wake. And much like the irregular and illogical behavior that characterizes his illness, Todd’s story is told in snippets and pieces that seem to represent his chaotic life: childhood memories of a father who could never hold a job for long and went on wild spending sprees, yet who tenderly encouraged his son; experiences during his travels; his time in a psychiatric ward undergoing electroshock therapy and the resultant memory lapses. Todd himself exhibits a cacophony of different reactions to his situations. At times he’s repulsive, sympathetic, comical, tragic, witty, self-absorbed, kind and regretful. But thanks to Garey’s accomplished narrative, no matter the emotions Todd’s actions elicits from readers, his character is always interesting and real.

Garey breathes life into an uncomfortable and often misunderstood subject and creates a riveting experience.

THE BRACELET

Gately, Roberta Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (336 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-4516-6912-1 On a run through the early morning mists of Geneva, Abby Monroe watches in horror as a woman falls from a balcony to her death. Was she pushed?

Stunned, Abby’s eyes are drawn to a gorgeous jeweled bracelet just as a man, a man who could be a murderer, leans over the balcony, sees her and gives chase.

Strangely, when Abby notifies the police, the body is nowhere to be found. So, Abby puts the mysterious event behind her and continues on to Peshawar, Pakistan, to document vaccine statistics for the United Nations. Her sleep is filled with nightmares, and her bathroom crawls with cockroaches, yet Abby pulls herself together and begins to work with women and children desolated by natural and human disasters. Gately (Lipstick in Afghanistan, 2010) vividly depicts the appalling conditions of refugee camps, as well as the stories of women who have escaped sexual slavery, yet her heroine’s naïveté strains credulity. Despite having been dumped by her long-term boyfriend, lost a dream job and willingly accepted a job in a place even the U.N. euphemistically terms an unstable security situation (not to mention having witnessed a possible murder), Abby implicitly trusts everyone she meets. Her days are quickly populated by the refugees Hana (the surly maid whose husband sold their child) and Najeela (the administrative assistant who wants to marry Lars, not an Afghan man chosen by her family). Into this world of women struggling to negotiate a world of terrorism and social oppression, Nick Sinclair arrives. Investigating conditions at the camps and allegations of human trafficking, Nick wants to interview Abby for a sidebar story. Although she inexplicably distrusts Nick, Abby has no one else to turn to when she finds the bracelet.

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Despite menacing characters and real atrocities, this mystery deflates.

CROSSING ON THE PARIS

Gynther, Dana Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-4516-7823-9

In her debut, novelist Gynther scores with this first-rate story centering on three women whose lives intersect aboard an ocean liner.

World War I has recently ended, and the French-based luxury liner, the Paris, is setting out on its maiden voyage to England and the United States. Three women climbing aboard the ship before departure are photographed together for the ship’s newspaper, and as the five-day crossing progresses, their lives continue to overlap in unexpected ways.

Julie, a young French girl whose four brothers died in the war, shattering her family, has taken a job aboard the ship. Excited at the prospect of leaving home for the first time, she reports from her position waiting tables and her life below deck in steerage.

Second-class passenger Constance Stone is returning home to Massachusetts following a failed attempt to persuade her younger sister to come with her and try to talk their mentally deranged mother back to sanity; while elderly, ailing first-class passenger Vera Sinclair has given up her privileged life in Paris to return home to New York in order to wait for the inevitable.

Julie and Constance both find romance they did not expect, and for Vera, there is also a discovery that changes everything she believes about herself. In the meantime, the three women keep crossing paths on the ship, not realizing how much they really have in common. Gynther does an excellent job of taking readers back to an Atlantic crossing in the early 1920s, when the U.S. was caught up in Prohibition and women were starting to question their roles in society. The ship’s details, the different levels of service and luxury experienced by the passengers and crew, as well as the twists and turns of the passage, prove engrossing in Gynther’s hands.

Gynther proves herself a fine storyteller with this artful tale. (Agent: Michelle Brower)

THE RIGHT HAND

Haas, Derek Mulholland Books/Little, Brown (288 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-316-19846-2 Once more to Moscow and the Russian tundra on a supersecret mission goes a solitary hero in a thriller that makes the familiar seem fresh.

“An excellent collection.” from she loves me not

There’s little in this book that thriller aficionados haven’t encountered—agents who may be double agents, an attractive woman who holds vital information, and sources trustworthy and treacherous. From all this, author Haas (Dark Men, 2011, etc.) has crafted a lean and mean tale laced with wit, mordant insight and, at perfectly judged moments, flashes of sharp prose. The “right hand” of the title is Austin Clay, who carries out “covert missions so black no one in the American government, and almost no one in intelligence” is aware of his exploits. Shrewd perceptions and nearly superhuman agility and shooting skills keep Clay atop his game as he plays “dirty street chess, the kind played in Washington Square Park in New York…where half the game is guff, intimidation and smack.” For the mission at hand, Clay’s handler packs him off to Russia to learn what has happened to missing agent Blake Nelson, who may have become a double agent or may have been murdered. Once in Moscow, sources lead Clay to believe Marika Csontos, a missing 18-year-old nanny, may have been passing Nelson information about clandestine dealings between Iran and Russia. Deftly dispatching pursuing Russian agents, Clay heads to Vladivostok where he finds Marika, who of course, is attractive. The two head back to Russia—with more Soviet agents in pursuit—to search for Nelson. Screenwriter Haas (3:10 to Yuma) paces his tale with crack action scenes that, however well they read on the page, may soon have film directors calling “Action!”

These high-octane scenes, however, never detract from Haas’ canny plotting, which is capped by a final, unexpected twist and a poignant fade-out.

It’s not the game, but how well you play it, and Haas plays it very well indeed in what clearly seems a series launch.

MARRIED LOVE

Hadley, Tessa Perennial/HarperCollins (240 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Nov. 20, 2012 978-0-06-213564-3 A subtly incisive vision and the ability to conjure full fictional scenarios in limited spaces characterize the new collection by a noted British writer.

In her second volume of stories, Hadley (The London Train, 2011, etc.) considers private fears, bad decisions, tipping points and unexpected assertions of free will, via 12 short fictions, six originally published in The New Yorker. “The Trojan Prince” introduces a young merchant seaman in the 1920s, flirting with the daughter of a wealthy family but ultimately choosing not to respond to her signals of attraction. In “A Mouthful of Cut Glass,” one of several stories reflecting social schisms, two college students take their partners home to meet the family and come face to face with the class divide.

The comfortable middle classes, an easy target, are pictured often, hosting boozy parties with unintended consequences in “Because the Night” or, in the title tale, coping badly with

a teenager’s announcement of marriage: “Whatever for?” responds the mother, “Dad and I have never felt the need.”

The strongest tales are at the front of the collection, though the briefer later ones linger on the palate too, like “In the Cave,” which pinpoints an infinitesimal but irrevocable emotional shift.

Shrewd, insightful, unpredictable, Hadley’s stories successfully plumb the complicated daily deeps.

SHE LOVES ME NOT New and Selected Stories

Hansen, Ron Scribner (256 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-4516-1758-0

A diverse, well-written collection from a writer in complete control of his material.

Recipient of an MFA from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, author of eight novels (A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion, 2011, etc.) and one previous collection of short stories, Hansen is the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., Professor in Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University. This collection of 19 stories could be roughly divided into two types: Midwest realism and noirish entertainments. The title story is in the latter category.

Writing in prison with the help of his cellmate, “the Professor,” the narrator recounts all he did to win a stripper’s heart.

“Red-Letter Days” is in the former category. Diary entries of a retired, Nebraska-based, frustratingly forgetful, golf-obsessed former attorney note golf outings, the deaths of friends and his wife’s declining health. “True Romance” and “Wilderness” are pieces of magical realism. His well-tempered sentences weave the thread that leads us into and out of these labyrinths. Here Hansen’s gifts allow him to suppress explanation in the service of atmosphere. “Can I Just Sit Here for a While?” is a bit of Midwestern noir. The successful salesman, contemplating opening his own business, moves back to South Bend, Ind., and a night on the town with former Notre Dame classmates turns strange when one of the group confronts a carload of surly high school students. “Wilde in Omaha” is a witty title for a reporter’s record of a visit by Oscar Wilde. “Wickedness” chronicles several characters’ fates in a terrible blizzard from the same period as Wilde’s visit.

An excellent collection. Hansen can write.

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h m e g a n a b b o t t

Dare Me

Megan Abbott Reagan Arthur/ Little, Brown (304 pp.) $24.99 Jul. 31, 2012 978-0-316-09777-2

“ ‘You wait your whole life for something to happen,’ [Beth]’s saying, her face virtuous, princesslike, under the rimy fluorescents. ‘Then, suddenly, it’s all the terrors of the earth all at once. Is that how it feels to you, Addy?’ ” When you’re a teenage girl, just about anything can feel like the terrors of the earth, and in Megan Abbott’s Dare Me, her band of cheerleaders face mysterious deaths, stubborn baby fat, statutory rape, squad excommunication, a bloodless coup, blackmail and a talent scout. To them, it all registers on the same level: terrifying. It all inspires the same response: attack.

All of the drama is set off by the arrival of a new cheerleading coach who is 15 percent Coach Taylor, 85 percent Miss Jean Brodie. Beth, usurped from her position of power as head cheerleader, decides to take her position back no matter what the cost, and there is no one more ruthless than a wronged teenage girl.

I spoke to Abbott about her merry band of deviants and the particular challenges of writing about teenage girls.

Q: The thing I found most remarkable about Dare Me was the physicality of it. As a former cheerleader and ballet dancer, I thought you got it exactly right—the way the pain of training can be almost clarifying, particularly for wayward teenage girls. How did you put yourself in the body of a teenage cheerleader?

A: I did a great deal of online eavesdropping to learn the ways the girls talked about their bodies, how it physically felt to do these stunts, to manipulate and even reshape their bodies. The exhilaration they felt struck me powerfully.

And though I was not an athlete at that age, I began to recall intensely the complicated relationship you have with your body at that age and the desire to change it and the way it can surprise you.

Those memories helped inform the more visceral parts of the book, that sense of your body always being under examination and the choice you can make to seize control over it, even if that means putting it at risk.

A: I think that’s a great way to put it. I have to admit, I fell more than a little in love with Beth as I wrote the book. Originally, I intended her to be a much harder character, much more brittle. But my feelings for her shifted as the book developed.

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Q: Speaking of sociopaths, would a sociopath even make a good character in one of your novels? If there wasn’t that pull of regret and conscience, would there be much of a story to tell? Other than a report on the body count?

A: I admit, I’ve never had an interest in writing a book about a “true” sociopath. For me, the sociopath works best in high satire or in highly stylized books where the pleasure derives from bravado, narrative cunning, black humor more than character. I love many of those books (maybe we’d put Highsmith’s Ripley novels in this category), but it’s never been the kind I could write. I’ve always been driven by tales where we still see a piece of us in the darkest of characters.

Maybe we wouldn’t do what these characters do, but we feel something for them, even if we can’t explain it.

Q: This is your second book in a row to dwell in this teenagegirl world, and I’m wondering what it is you find compelling there, and what made you want to revisit it after The End of Everything. I mean, besides the fact that obviously behind the facade of every teenage girl lies a murderous soul.

A: Well, that’s probably it, most of all!

But truly, I think female aggression, desire and rage among young girls still feels underexplored. For many of us, it remains an uncomfortable topic. We have a lot invested in believing in the idea of young girls being either innocent and pure, or shallow or silly or capricious. Anything but what they are (and we all secretly know this): cauldrons of complicated emotions and drives. And keen wielders of power: social, erotic, emotional, physical. It’s such a rich terrain.

Q: What, then, are the particular challenges of writing teenage girls? I would imagine acquiring the language would be difficult or shutting out the moralizing about how sexting is the end of the world for us all...

A: I think the hardest part was the kind of double consciousness you’re cursed by as an adult. Writing from a teenage girl’s head, I have to become, in part, a teenage girl again, with all its attendant frustrations and high emotions and sense of possibility.

Jessa Crispin in the founder and editor-in-chief of Bookslut.

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For the complete interview, visit our website at kirkus.com.

ph oto c ou rt esy o f D re w Re il ly

Q: Beth was so interesting to me, as she wasn’t just a straight sociopath. It seemed she herself wasn’t quite sure why she was doing the things she was doing. Do you think Beth wanted to be hard and unfeeling but couldn’t quite get to that point?

The throne has been taken from her with astonishing swiftness, and it feels unjust. She believes that she’s doing the right thing, always. So I wrote her as if she were in fact doing the right thing. I grew to admire her, her fervor, her protectiveness. There’s a battered heart at the center of her, and it rules everything.

COLLATERAL

Hopkins, Ellen Atria (512 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-4516-2637-7 Written in Hopkins’ signature free verse (Triangles, 2011, etc.), this book examines the relationship between a young California woman and the Marine she loves in language that ranges from raw to tender.

Ashley and her Marine boyfriend paint their relationship in searing physical terms in this uneven tale of two best friends and the men they love. Ashley, a college student who still relies on her parents to support her, and Darian, her roommate, meet Cole and Spencer at a club one night. The two Marines are stationed nearby, but Wyoming-born Cole seems gentle and poetic to Ashley, despite his brutal profession. Ashley’s parents deplore the relationship, and her mother, who hates the military, is especially critical of the pairing. She believes Cole is a butcher, but Ashley, who knows that Cole writes poetry and has a loving, sweet side, is convinced he is a much more complex man than her parents realize. Darian and Spencer are another story, though. Their rocky relationship bounces from heaven to hell faster than a melting ice cube, and Darian’s sexuality is like a sign she wears around her neck. Although eventually married to Spencer, she can’t seem to stop finding other men with whom to occupy her time. Hopkins specializes in writing long-form free verse, and her fans are rabid about her work, but for those who’ve never before dipped a toe into this style, the book may prove tough going and, in some places, overtly sexual. Although the author assures readers she meticulously researched the book for details about the military and military life, she insists on calling Cole a “soldier,” which is a term appropriate to the Army, but eschewed by members of the Marine Corps. She gets many of the other details of military life right and brings much passion to her work, but that one major stumble may turn off military readers.

A melodramatic and very often overwrought volume that attempts to capture the heart and soul of what it’s like to be the girl left behind.

THE ELEPHANT KEEPERS’ CHILDREN

Høeg, Peter Other Press (512 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 23, 2012 978-1-59051-490-0

Part comic teenage adventure story, part intellectual debate, the best-selling Danish author’s sixth novel is a shaggydog story with a unique vision.

Featuring quirky names like Leonora Ticklepalate and Sinbad Al-Blablab; precocious, resourceful teenagers racing to save their parents; adolescent romance;

and a series of adult-deceiving dodges, Høeg’s (The Quiet Girl, 2007, etc.) latest has a definite crossover/young adult flavor. Set on the fictitious Danish island of Finø, it introduces the Finø family: children Hans, Tilte and Peter, and parents pastor Konstantin and his inventor wife, Clara. This couple disappeared once before, having developed some kind of spiritual fraud system involving his sermons and her special effects, but the children have indulged their parents’ history of swindling because they are “elephant keepers,” containing something bigger than themselves, namely their yearning for God. Now, the two are missing again and Peter and Tilte must go to their rescue. An endless sequence of whimsical episodes ensues as the children give social services the slip, con their way off the island and head toward a Grand Synod of faiths where they suspect their parents are planning an equally grand theft of religious artifacts.

Høeg has an endless menu of oddities to stir into his story; whether thriller, fantasy or disquisition on spiritual belief, love and parenting does successfully invent an inexhaustible landscape all its own.

This self-indulgent, idiosyncratic and immensely long story will either charm its readers into submission or utterly exhaust their patience.

THE TRIAL OF FALLEN ANGELS

Kimmel Jr., James Amy Einhorn/Putnam (384 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 8, 2012 978-0-399-15969-5

Kimmel pays readers a supreme compliment here by inviting them to take seriously the theological question of the Last Judgment.

Lawyer Brek Cuttler wakes up one day to find herself in Shemaya, the land of the dead, where she’s not only been called to account, but has been chosen to put her post-mortem legal skills to work.

The circumstances of her death are hazy, even to her, but as the story unfolds, some dense and troubling images, as well as some kind and soothing ones from her past, assault her.

She aches at the loss of her husband, Bo, a television reporter who’s recently been doing undercover work and has infiltrated a white supremacist organization, and she grieves her separation from her one-year-old daughter, Sarah. Kimmel’s narrative weaves together four generations of Brek’s family both in life and in death. She also finds out that in Shemaya, she is able to inhabit the consciousness of other people, so she feels their lives subjectively, from the inside. Particularly troubling is her inner experience of Ott Bowles, a young white supremacist who kidnapped Brek and her daughter, an event that, it turns out, led to her death. Along the way, we have extended discussions about issues of justice, mercy and most of all, forgiveness.

We learn, for example, that Noah’s Flood “changed...the very essence of God’s relationship to man, not man’s relationship to God. God changed His ways. We didn’t change ours.” Much of this theological and moral framework is provided by Luas, | kirkus.com | fiction | 1 October 2012 | 2189

“A fractured experiment in multiformat storytelling.” from excuse me for living

the High Jurisconsult of Shemaya and mentor of Brek in these shadow lands.

Although occasionally overly discursive, Kimmel presents here an intriguing, intricate and metaphysical novel— not your typical fare.

A CHRISTMAS HOME

Kincaid, Greg Crown (256 pp.) $16.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-307-95197-7

The latest in Kincaid’s series about a developmentally challenged young man and his penchant for helping dogs is pleasant enough, but breaks no new ground.

Following on the heels of Kincaid’s other novels about likable canines (A Dog Named Christmas, 2008, etc.), this book finds Todd McCray all grown up into a capable young man who works for the animal shelter in the quaint town of Crossing Trails. But both his job and the town’s very existence are threatened when the major employer in Crossing Trails shuts down. Suddenly, the small town of 2,000 finds itself making major cutbacks and one of those is, by necessity, doing away with the small, but busy, animal shelter.

Todd and his boss, Hayley, are told by the town’s mayor that the shelter will shutter its doors no later than the first of the year, and it’s already more than a week into December. Both take the news hard, especially since the shelter has dozens of homeless dogs and cats and very few options other than sending their animals to facilities that will kill them if they aren’t adopted. With his parents, George and Mary Ann, his friend Laura and her service dog, Gracie, which Todd trained, and the assistance of other friends and residents of the tiny town, Todd looks for an alternative solution, promising none of the animals under his care will be forgotten. Kincaid, who obviously loves animals, presents a too-good-to-be-true community with a plot straight out of a television movie-of-theweek and then throws his character through clichéd hoops.

Although the solutions the group finds along the way are way too easy to come by and never seem to have a downside, the characters and settings prove pleasant enough. The writing, which is simplistic, won’t engage sophisticated readers, but for those seeking a slight, uncomplicated tale that can be read cover-to-cover in about a weekend and won’t leave the reader searching for some deeper meaning, this book fits the bill and then some.

Although rated for adults, Kincaid’s writing level seems more compatible with young adult novels in both verbiage and complexity.

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EXCUSE ME FOR LIVING

Klass, Ric Arcade (304 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Oct. 1, 2012 978-1-61145-780-3

The pretty-boy heir to a junkyard empire lands himself in high-society rehab after plunging off the George Washington Bridge.

When is a novelization not a novelization? When it’s a disjointed, tangentially interesting book produced “in tandem” with an indie film written, produced and directed by former Wall Street financier and author Klass (Man Overboard, 2006). The book will be released simultaneously with a romantic comedy starring Robert Vaughan, Dick Cavett, Christopher Lloyd and a host of veterans from Seinfeld and various daytime soaps. Plotwise, the book follows the film, centering on Daniel Topler, a wealthy, brilliant med student whose addiction to drugs and his own line of bullshit sends him teetering off the GWB. Mouthing off to the judge lands him in a silver-spoon rehab clinic where Daniel finds himself under the care of visiting physician Dr. Jacob Q. Bernstein. Daniel is full of quips, self-deprecating humor and cutting insights, none of which hold water with the troubled Bernstein. “Please stop,” Bernstein says. “I don’t believe you. You don’t have to defend yourself. I’m not attacking. You possess superior verbal abilities. But they’re not helping you.

You use language as a weapon and a shield. But your only war is inside of you where words can’t help.” Interestingly, Klass shies away from his Good Will Hunting setup and forces Daniel to attend Bernstein’s men’s group, where he meets men of far greater character and accomplishments for whom growing old is a harsh mirror. There’s a good story hiding in here, including a risky romance between Daniel and Bernstein’s lovely daughter Laura, not to mention Ally, a funny fellow inmate who becomes obsessed with the quick-witted lunatic. Unfortunately, the main story is complicated by numerous superfluous plots about Daniel’s family and his drug buddies.

A fractured experiment in multiformat storytelling that reads like a vanity project.

NEVER COMING BACK

Koppel, Hans Pegasus Crime (336 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 14, 2012 978-1-60598-391-2

Swedish suburbia is the setting for this thriller about an abducted young woman who is imprisoned and abused— in a house across the street from hers­— by the psychiatrist her husband turns to in his fear and despair.

When Ylva doesn’t come home one night, her husband, Mike, can’t help but assume she’s having a fling. She had one

known affair and has been known to flirt with countless other men. When hours and then days pass and she doesn’t return to him and their 7-year-old daughter, he and the police fear the worst. One place they don’t think to look for her is the neighbor’s house, where Ylva is locked in a specially rigged panic room, raped by the shrink and systematically demeaned and starved by him and his wife. A camera inside her house also allows her to gaze upon her family as they cope with her disappearance. Resisting efforts to brainwash her, Ylva plans her escape. A shaky personality prone to weeping, Mike finds solace, and ultimately more, in her work mate. A speedy, efficient thriller, this book was a best-seller in Sweden and England. Koppel (actually Swedish children’s book author Petter Lidbeck) does a skillful job of putting the pieces of this creepy puzzle together. He’s not so good at creating adult characters that leave an imprint on the page. And the revenge factor at the heart of the novel isn’t very convincing. It involves a youth gang that cruelly hazed kids years ago and resulted in the suicide of the psychiatrist’s daughter.

An abducted-woman thriller with a twist, but Silence of the Lambs it’s not.

from an ungrateful Russia and turned into a tourist attraction. Needless to say, the bureaucrats’ plans get turned on their heads, and the Cloud Cuckoo-Land that emerges isn’t quite what they bargained for. Lianke writes long, but there’s not a wasted word or scene. And who can resist a book with characters with names the likes of Grandma Mao Zhi, Little Polio Boy and One-Legged Monkey?

A satirical masterpiece, very funny for all its footnotes.

You can bet the authorities in Beijing are scratching their heads about it. (Agent: Laura Susijn)

LENIN’S KISSES

Lianke, Yan Translated by Rojas, Carlos Grove (592 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-8021-2037-3 Sprawling, sometimes goofy, always seditious novel of modern life in the remotest corner of China.

Set Rabelais down in the mountains of, say, Xinjiang, mix in some Günter Grass, Thomas Pynchon and Gabriel García Márquez, and you’re in the approximate territory of Lianke’s (Serve the People! 2008, etc.) latest exercise in épatering the powers that be. Oh, and then there’s Friedrich Dürrenmatt, too, whose The Visit afforded the lesson that you should never mess with little people in the high country. Deep inside the Balou Mountains, Lianke imagines, lies a Macondo-like village inhabited by a great heroine of the Long March, broken of leg and frostbitten of toe, along with her cohort of—well, let one of them tell it: “thirty-five blind people, forty-seven deaf people, and thirty-seven cripples, together with several dozen more who are missing an arm or a finger, have an extra finger, stunted growth, or some other handicap.” These odd folks would seem an impediment to the grand plans of the local Communist leadership, smitten by dreams of revolutionary capitalism, who have a grand plan even for the hamlet of Liven, a place that prompts one of them, Chief Liu, to complain, “Fuck, I simply can’t believe it could possibly get too cold for me.” Cold is the least of his concerns in fulfilling his dream, which is to promote tourism and investment in order to turn the mountains into a Red Disneyland featuring the embalmed corpse of V.I. Lenin himself, to be bought | kirkus.com | fiction | 1 October 2012 | 2191

YOUNG PHILBY

Littell, Robert Dunne/St. Martin’s (288 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-250-00516-8

A dizzying, “what if ” take on (in) famous British spy Kim Philby.

In 1963, Kim Philby, a member of British Intelligence, was exposed as a double agent working for Russia. The case continues to provide a mother lode for spy novels, and in this latest, Littell (The Stalin Epigram, 2009, etc.) spins the story even further, building to a finish that suggests the story still offers at least one more stunning “shoe drop.” Littell’s narrative follows the outlines of Philby’s private and public lives, which here are inextricably linked. The story unfolds in a series of first-person accounts from friends, lovers and contacts who knew Philby at key junctures in his career as an agent.

There’s Litzi Friedman, who first puts callow but wary Philby in touch with the Russians when he visits Vienna; Guy Burgess, Philby’s flamboyantly gay classmate at Cambridge, whom Philby enlists as a spy for the Soviets; Frances Doble, a film star who romances Philby as he reports on the Spanish Civil War for the London Times; and Philby’s father, Harry St John Bridger Philby, aka “the Hajj.” From these narratives emerges a mural of the history of espionage before, during and after World War II, as well as an in-depth portrait of Philby, who becomes a canny informant despite his fear of the sight of blood. The narrators speak with distinctive voices, yet the chapters are unified by the dark lens of Littell’s mordant take on spies and their craft. As in The Company (2002), Littell shows particular skill at recreating pulse-quickening epic scenes of conflict—the Russian-backed uprising against Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, the war against fascist dictator Francisco Franco, and the horrors of Stalin’s kangaroo courts and of Moscow prisons. Veteran Littell remains unbowed by commercial pressures to speed up the text. Elegantly written paragraphs and speeches running to half pages distinguish his work.

A Cold-War spy novel for the top shelf.

FINDING CASEY

Mapson, Jo-Ann Bloomsbury (336 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-1-60819-763-7

Mapson follows the ever-so-uplifting characters she developed in Solomon’s Oak (2010) to their new home in Sante Fe, N.M., where they face past demons as they build their future.

Middle-aged newlyweds Glory and Joseph—she met him after the death of her beloved first husband in California—have moved to Joseph’s hometown to be close to the disabled former policeman’s large extended family.

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They have moved into a house that they love, although it may be haunted by a ghost they have named Dolores. Glory’s adopted daughter, Juniper, precocious and no longer even the teensiest bit rebellious or angry, has begun college at 16 and, driven to excel as an anthropology major, is dismissive of superficial dorm social life. Juniper is still haunted by the childhood disappearance of her sister, Casey, a tragedy that destroyed her family and would have destroyed Juniper if Glory and Joseph had not embraced her so warmly. Now, Glory is pregnant at 41; Joseph is completing a cookbook of New Mexican/Latino recipes; and Juniper is smitten with a spoiled rich boy from the East. Meanwhile, on a commune in Española, 26 miles outside Santa Fe, a young mother named Laurel runs away from her creepy, abusive “husband,” Seth, to get her critically ill child to the hospital with the help of a local Indian potter. At the hospital, a kindly social worker befriends Laurel and gradually gets her to remember her tragic past. By the time Juniper comes to Española to research native pottery with a charmingly geeky teaching assistant, the commune has been deserted. Juniper discovers the pot she is studying is not native. Revelations ensue.

Readers drawn in by Mapson’s warmhearted style should not overlook how rigidly she divides the line between good and evil, right and wrong.

LIFE! DEATH! PRIZES!

May, Stephen Bloomsbury (256 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Dec. 11, 2012 978-1-62040-001-2 Left in charge of his young brother after their mother is killed, 19-year-old Billy Smith does a spectacularly bad job of coping.

Profane, angry, flippant, comical and sexually frustrated, Billy gives voice to British writer May’s second novel (Tag, 2008) with enough sarcasm to strip paint. His ranting banter conceals the grief of losing his mother during a bag snatch that went wrong but also expresses his caustic view of his small-town community and “trauma porn”—Billy’s name for the Life/Death/Prizes magazines he reads, featuring freakish domestic disasters similar to his own. Billy isn’t a wholly reliable narrator—he fantasizes a dysfunctional background for the boy who killed his mother while failing to acknowledge the mess he is making of caring for his 6-year-old brother. Surviving on fast food, neglecting to pay the bills, watching porn and getting into fights, Billy is on the edge of a breakdown and flirting with disaster once social services get involved. Although reminiscent of Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the book tends more toward Nick Hornby’s laddishness, reaching its climax with a custody application resisted by Billy but which turns out well enough in the end.

A graphically up-to-date coming-of-age tale, with some very strong language and plenty of British slang. Provocative! Bittersweet! Promising! (Agent: David Smith)

THE MARSEILLE CAPER

Mayle, Peter Knopf (224 pp.) $24.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-307-59419-8

Now that Sam Levitt has recovered entertainment lawyer Danny Roth’s stolen wine from dodgy millionaire Francis Reboul (The Vintage Caper, 2009), his quarry wants to hire him for a job of his own.

Reboul is one of three candidates who’ve submitted bids to develop Anse des Pecheurs, a Marseille neighborhood that’s resisted builders for 120 years. One of Reboul’s competitors, Caroline Dumas, stands no chance because she’s a Parisian. But the other, Lord William Wapping, is an ex-bookmaker who’ll stop at nothing to win the contract—and who has Reboul’s old enemy Jérôme Patrimonio, chair of the committee who’ll be making the decision, in his pocket and the shady connections to undercut his rivals. Technically, Reboul wants Sam to masquerade as an architect in order to make a convincing presentation to Patrimonio’s committee while keeping Reboul’s involvement secret. Unofficially, Sam—with his lover and sometime-boss Elena Morales in tow—will need to deflect each of Wapping’s attempts to steal the project. Fortunately, Wapping is remarkably transparent and his hired thugs remarkably ineffectual.

The lack of suspense leaves plenty of room for the Provençal dining, fine wines, regional history and geography, and local color that are Mayle’s main business. The result is the most relaxed caper you’ve ever encountered.

To compensate for the absence of plot complications, realistic dialogue or suspense, the meals sound great, the ebullient badinage is genuinely witty and Mayle wears his considerable knowledge of the area lightly.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

Neugeboren, Jay Two Dollar Radio (282 pp.) $17.00 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-937512-02-6 Aided by his friend Nick, Charlie Eisner travels to Singapore and Borneo to find—or perhaps to lose—himself, but Nick’s sudden death brings Charlie

back to the States.

Charlie is the son of Max Eisner, a charismatic and talented professor, now retired, who’s had five marriages and numerous affairs. Max’s current lover is Seana O’Sullivan, who’d been his most talented graduate student and is roughly half Max’s age.

Coming off of his own failed marriage, Nick invites Charlie to work with him in the palm-oil business in Singapore. Lost and searching, Charlie decides to hitch his wagon to Nick’s star.

Their friendship is a complicated one, going back to their time

together at UMass and surviving Nick’s failed relationship to his wife, Trish, Charlie’s former lover—and the situation is complicated even further when it’s revealed that for a while, they’d been a threesome. Nick introduces Charlie to the substantial sensual pleasures of the Far East, and Charlie finds he loves the beauty and exoticism of Borneo. One evening, when Nick gets blindingly drunk in his 16th-floor apartment, he charges at Charlie, who hoists him over the railing to his death. Charlie feels compelled to return to New England to reconcile himself with Nick’s parents, Trish and Max. Even more sexual complications ensue when Trish, Seana and Charlie form their own threesome, and with Max’s sudden death, Charlie begins a relationship with Seana.

Although summarizing the arc of the narrative makes it sound like the most sensational of soap operas, it’s anything but—Neugeboren presents a meditation on life, love, art and family relationships that’s reminiscent of the best of John Updike.

HEROES PROVED

North, Oliver Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-1-4767-0631-3 North (Mission Compromised, 2002, etc.) forecasts a near future with a liberal government gone authoritarian, and it’s left to Anarks (Anti-American Religious Kooks) and other right-thinkers to defend Constitutional ideals.

Part thriller, part conspiracy novel, part political screed, this book follows the Newman family, led by father-son USMC heroes Peter and James, as it becomes embroiled in the 2032 election year’s dirty politics subsequent to a September 11 terrorist attack on a scientific conference: Old-school Clancy in a brave new world. The Caliphate, an Islamic hagiography, controls everything from North Africa to Indonesia, although the ever-combative Iranians, picking at scabs of the Sunni-Shia split, are no peaceful disciples. The U.S. has ceded personal liberties to the U.N. Citizens have a PERT (Personal Electronic Radio Tag) embedded in their bodies, and everyone carries traceable PIDs (Personal Interface Device) connecting to MESH, the fourth-generation Internet. North’s Acronym World 2032 needs an 11 page glossary, but the action is securely rooted in standard thriller dynamic. The catalyst is the apparent engineering of a fuel cell by Martin Cohen, retired admiral and professor, kidnapped during the conference attack. Cohen was Peter Newman’s Naval Academy classmate. Rumors were the fuel cell would be available for free, something that doesn’t go down well with the Iranians. Led by the widow of the previous incumbent, the current corrupt U.S. administration doesn’t want the attack blamed on the Caliphate, since her reelection depends on Caliphate money and its no-terror cooperation. An administration conspiracy | kirkus.com | fiction | 1 October 2012 | 2193

“Otto makes these eight women and the differing lenses through which they view the 20th century hard to forget.” from eight girls taking pictures

labels the Newmans as Anarks and blames James Newman for the attack. The Newmans have the resources of their allpowerful intelligence/paramilitary company, Centurion Solutions Group, and have Sen. Mackintosh Caperton, another Academy classmate, as an ally. As the jargon-loaded narrative unfolds, the Newmans retreat to their private island; Cohen washes ashore in Yucatan post-hurricane; and drug smugglers allied with the Mexican government, Iranians and CSG operatives led by James Newman converge on scene for the de rigueur shootout, escape and resolution.

Predictable action sponsoring a political and social agenda.

SEAL TEAM 666

Ochse, Weston Dunne/St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $24.99 | Dec. 11, 2012 978-1-250-00735-3 Jack Walker, a young cadet in training for the Navy SEALs, was possessed by a “grave demon” while growing up in the Philippines. Drafted into SEAL Team 666, a secret special ops unit that fights demons, monsters and ghosts, he is uniquely equipped to thwart an evil threat from Myanmar poised to wreak havoc on the world.

SEAL Team 6, the real-life elite team that killed Osama bin Laden, has never seen the kinds of things that confront its fictional counterpart. Walker has barely settled into his new role when a spiked, six-legged beast—it takes an epic round of gunfire to bring down—surprises him and his four partners. The SEALs soon confront golemlike homunculus creatures, which run amok, appearing and disappearing, intent on plucking out and devouring its victims’ intestines. The scariest creature is politically rooted, summoning ancient curses to empower a separatist movement in Myanmar. To thwart his wicked opponent, Walker must overcome the fugue states he enters into when his old demons act up. (A Navy brat, he was cursed by a witch doctor mad at his father for selling supplies on the black market.) He gets help from the squad’s intrepid dog, which has unique skills of its own. Ochse, credited as an intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, won a Bram Stoker Award for his first novel, Scarecrow Gods (2005).

He brings both a lively gallows humor to the story and just the right amount of conviction to make his scenarios as creepy as they are cartoonish.

May not be for fans of realism-soaked military fiction, but it will leave fans of a woolier kind of combat tale looking forward to future installments.

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EIGHT GIRLS TAKING PICTURES

Otto, Whitney Scribner (352 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-1-4516-8269-4

Otto (A Collection of Beauties at the Height of Their Popularity, 2002, etc.) combines a paean to the art form with an argument for women’s rights in these interlocking stories of eight fictional woman photographers, clearly inspired by actual photographers, over the course of the 20th century.

While studying photochemistry in 1909 Dresden, Cymbeline discovers a soul mate in her middle-aged professor. The handful of photographs that record their brief, doomed affair are lost when a maid sets fire to Cymbeline’s San Francisco studio in 1917. Married to someone else by then and expected to put her domestic responsibilities first, Cymbeline abandons her work in portraiture but finds an outlet in photographing her garden. Slightly younger British photographer Amadora’s commitment to the art form is initially more a matter of happenstance and suffragette dabbling than passion. But when her husband returns damaged from World War I, Amadora uses color photography to create a world for him. Italianborn Clara, who lives in San Francisco’s artistic circles before moving to Mexico in the 1920s, is undone by her intertwining passions for art, men and politics. In contrast, wealthy N.Y. socialite Ellen, raised to separate love from sex, avoids intimacy in life or photography until she becomes a photojournalist in World War II. After escaping 1930s Germany, Jewish photographer and lesbian/bohemian Charlotte marries for security and moves to Argentina, but her true love remains another woman. The contradictory pull between romantic love and family becomes more complicated when her career takes off. Miri feels trapped in post-WWII domesticity until she starts photographing Manhattan from her apartment window, and the tension of domestic love energizes her creativity.

Cymbeline has already emerged as the novel’s uniting presence by the time she visits Miri’s exhibit. 1970s radical feminist Jessie interviews Cymbeline, picking up some hard-won advice.

Coming full circle in 1980 is domestic free-spirit Jenny, whose photography of her children is labeled pornographic.

Although overly schematic, Otto makes these eight women and the differing lenses through which they view the 20th century hard to forget. (Author tour to Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle. Agent: Joy Harris)

SILENT HOUSE

Pamuk, Orhan Translated by Finn, Robert Knopf (320 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 12, 2012 978-0-307-70028-5 Previously unpublished in English, the Turkish Nobel Laureate’s second novel spins characteristic themes of history and national identity outward from a three-generational domestic scenario.

This early work by Pamuk (The Museum of Innocence, 2009, etc.) is weighted toward the younger generation as it considers the complex tensions between tradition and modernism, East and West, using a collage of viewpoints, all related through blood, yet each expressive of a very different perspective.

Ninety-year-old widow Fatma still lives in Cennethisar, a village that has developed into a bustling seaside resort, in the old marital home she shared with exiled doctor Selâhattin, an atheist and modernist whose passion for science inspired him to do the impossible—to write a 48-volume encyclopedia. Selâhattin drank himself to death, as did their son, Dogan, and as probably will Dogan’s historian son, Faruk, who, with his two siblings, is visiting Fatma for the summer. The family is served by Recep, a dwarf with a crippled brother, Ismail. Both are Selâhattin’s bastards, born of a servant. Ismail’s son, Hasan, is the spark in this diverse group, the aggrieved, impoverished nationalist whose fantasies of success arise from the furious hopelessness of his situation. Violence, both historic and immediate, class and politics further fracture the emblematic group.

Using a repetitive, circular, incremental technique, Pamuk builds a multifaceted panorama distinguished by his customary intellectual richness and breadth.

interesting how so many of these had an autobiographical seed and are filled with detail rooted in the writer’s experience. Not that any of these stories is straight memoir, but one of the most powerful, “Diem Perdidi” by Julie Otsuka, elicits this explanation from its award-winning author: “Writing it, I suppose, was my way of keeping my mother with me in the world, a way of being with her even as she was slipping away,” and such context deepens the resonance of a formally inspired narrative in which most of the sentences begin “She remembers...” and the main other character, whom the protagonist doesn’t necessarily remember, is “you.” Writes Otsuka, “She remembers that she is forgetting. She remembers less and less every day.” The anthology mixes selections from perennials such as Alice Munro (who could well be “the single writer who looms over this year’s collection—over the art of the short story as it’s practiced in America right now,” according to Perrotta), Nathan Englander, Mary Gaitskill and George Saunders (the most experimental of the lot), with others who have yet to become as well-known and are published in smaller literary magazines.

THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2012

Perrotta, Tom--Ed. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (384 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-547-24210-1

A typically strong selection, though this year’s offerings are less international in setting and more often realistic than in some recent years.

As a popular novelist with a creative writing, graduate school pedigree, Perrotta (Little Children, 2004, etc.) proclaims his preference for “stories written in plain, artful language about ordinary people. I’m wary of narrative experiments and excessive stylistic virtuosity, suspicious of writing that feels exclusive or elitist.” Thus, he has applied those principles to his selections in serving as this year’s editor. In addition to the stories themselves, one of the highlights of the annual is the explanation by each writer of the genesis of the selected story, and it’s | kirkus.com | fiction | 1 October 2012 | 2195

A selection that should please readers who love the traditional pleasures of storytelling, through voices that are thoroughly contemporary.

A CHRISTMAS GARLAND

Perry, Anne Ballantine (176 pp.) $18.00 | Oct. 30, 2012 978-0-345-53074-5

Perennial best-selling author Perry (A Sunless Sea, 2012, etc.) once again shows why her work resonates with readers in this short Christmas story that doesn’t rely on all of the usual yuletide

tricks to make it sing.

Victor Narraway serves with the British army in 1857 wartorn India. Going into the service wasn’t his idea, though; his father decided it would turn him into a man. Young Narraway now wears the insignia of lieutenant in a troubled country ruled by the British Empire. Recent uprisings among the Indian people have resulted in the deaths of thousands of Englishmen and their families, and the escape of a prisoner led to the tragic ambush of a patrol. It’s that escape and patrol that now occupy Narraway, even though he wasn’t even part of the garrison when the attack took place. His senior officer, Col. Latimer, who will preside over the court martial of a suspect in the case, has appointed him to represent the soldier, a medical orderly named John Tallis, who stands accused of conspiring with an Indian traitor to facilitate his escape and the targeting of the patrol. Narraway is only given a couple of days to prepare for the trial, which he understands he will lose: Tallis is the only soldier who cannot be accounted for during the time that the escape took place. But when Narraway visits with Tallis, he is struck by how much he likes the forlorn and ultimately doomed medical orderly and believes he is innocent of the crime. With little hope of saving the man before the onset of Christmas, Narraway sets out to prove his innocence and surprises even himself with his resourcefulness. Perry avoids all of the mawkish pitfalls that are usually the hallmark of holiday books by choosing an unconventional setting and decidedly different approach. Rather than leaning on sentiment, she writes an honest, though somewhat grim, story that captures the essence of 19th-century India and the character of a compassionate man.

A novel approach to an oft-explored subject, this tale will delight Perry’s fans and bring her new ones.

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BARGAIN HUNTING

Pollero, Rhonda Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Oct. 30, 2012 978-1-4165-9082-8 The third in Pollero’s Finley Anderson Tanner mystery series has Finley finding love, bargains and bullets flying her way.

A paralegal at a swanky Palm Beach law firm, Finley has finally moved from estates to criminal law, where all the action is. But it may prove to be a bit more action than she envisioned. Late one night, Liam McGarrity, the law firm’s sexy PI, knocks on her door with a bullet wound in his side and his dishy ex-wife holding him up. Liam was set up: Called to his ex-partner’s house (Liam used to be a police officer before he had to resign in disgrace under suspicious circumstances), Liam arrives to find José dead, someone shooting at him and his old police-issue gun on the floor. What unravels is a plot that implicates drug lords, the police’s gang unit and maybe even the district attorney. Meanwhile, things heat up between Finley and Liam, but Finley can’t get over the constant presence of his ex-wife, Ashley. And not to be forgotten is her boss, Tony, a kind widower with a teenage daughter, who may be a better fit than sexy, dangerous Liam. Pollero delivers a by-the-numbers procedural mixed with the conventions of the chick-lit universe. The novel’s title, far from referencing the plot, describes Finley’s pastime of trolling eBay for designer duds (in between shoot-em-up excitement, Finley keeps an eye on her bid for a diamond Rolex bevel). When getting dressed, to visit a gang leader in prison, say, we are treated to a quick rundown of her designer choices. These details feel thrown together and hardly distract from a mystery that is easily solved. Finley is a likable character: a little lazy, a little vain, a little conflicted about the kind of man she wants; now if only she had a better mystery to solve.

An uneven mystery fails a charming, amateur detective.

THE HEAT OF THE SUN

Rain, David Henry Holt (304 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-8050-9670-5

A remarkable debut that reinvents, elaborates and extends into the late 20th century the story Puccini made famous in Madama Butterfly.

Woodley Sharpless—orphan, cripple, closeted homosexual—is a noted biographer. He guides us through the life story of Ben “Trouble” Pinkerton. Trouble is the apt name for a man who makes a scene on the periphery of history. Trouble is the only son of the Pinkertons. Sen. Pinkerton could have been president. Kate, his

wife, is a Manville, daughter of a dynastic political family. This is Sharpless’ story as well. Trouble’s parents, well meaning, controlling and weary of publicity, enlist Sharpless as a minder for their wayward son. We think we know Trouble, the man who has everything, who refuses to grow up, who lives a life without consequences but is nonetheless given opportunities. This is the joke that’s no joke: We know “trouble,” can see it coming.

Sharpless meets and falls for Trouble at Blaze, a boarding school.

Trouble doesn’t last long but during his brief tenure, becomes many things to Sharpless: hero, love-object, obsession. Le Vol, another lifelong friend Sharpless makes at Blaze, reappears in the story, representing a vivid alternative to the life Sharpless leads in Trouble’s wake. Every part of the novel—from the names to the books the characters have in their pockets to the invented opera added to Puccini’s oeuvre—is considered, a calculated risk to draw attention to itself. The book might be called postmodern, but it never makes references to create ironic distance—on the contrary, every detail is in the service of the elaborate, operatic melodrama, the story within the story.

A version of the ancient story of love and honor, and honor betrayed, it culminates at the Trinity A-bomb test, the characters, each in their own way, devastated.

Rain is master of this inventive, operatic and at moments harrowing debut.

AFTER THE FALL

Roberts, Victoria Norton (192 pp.) $24.95 | Nov. 12, 2012 978-0-393-07355-3

A wealthy New York City family hits the skids and is forced to move into Central Park.

Famously the staff cartoonist for The New Yorker, Roberts brings her strengths and whimsical sense of humor to bear in this heavily illustrated but lightly written novel. The dramatis personae introduced here include Pops, an inventor whose creations have made the family filthy rich; Mother, a bone-skinny matriarch with a perpetual cigarette; Sis, a young performer destined for fringe theater; our narrator, the sweet-natured brother, Alan; as well as servants Gudelia and Usvelia and three pugs. When the family loses everything, they mysteriously find themselves living in the midst of Central Park. Not quite homeless, the family winds up bringing everything, from their couch to their doorman, with them. It’s all quite idyllic at first, as Mother kills swans in the park for coq au vin, and Pops works on inventions like the Diplomatix, an effervescent tablet that teaches how to think like the French. But as Christmas looms, the family dynamics start coming apart at the seams. The illustrations, as one might imagine, are the book’s most winning attribute. Roberts is consistent in her portrayals of the odd family while simultaneously throwing in absurdities, like the sea monster Sis imagines lives in the pond and the Yeti that comes to visit during the winter.

But for all the wonders of Roberts’ illustrations, the story is

fitfully funny in a style reminiscent of Wes Anderson films. Alan is particularly funny, popping out lines like, “I’m learning Italian. This morning at the Met, I followed a group led by a female guide in Italian. I’m going to acquire Japanese, too, via osmosis.”

Those who can’t stand the dandy-ish style of the New Yorker may find this avant-garde children’s book for adults off-putting. For those who value absurdity and have a soft spot for anthropomorphic animals, it’s a richly illustrated treat.

A tale full of juvenile embellishment aimed squarely at sophisticated adults. (225 illustrations)

LOVE IN THE YEARS OF LUNACY

Sayer, Mandy Atria (336 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-4516-7846-8 A willful Australian girl falls in love with a black soldier during World War II and battles to keep the relationship afloat in Sayer’s inconsistent historical romance (Dreamtime Alice, 1998, etc.).

A year after Pearl Willis dies, her nephew Jimmy discovers a cache of audio tapes she left for him. Much to his surprise, the tapes contain a detailed autobiography, a story that, as she tells him on the tape, she tried many times to write, but somehow couldn’t. Instead, she hopes that Jimmy, an author, will do the job for her. As he listens to each tape, Jimmy learns the true story of Pearl and her twin brother, Martin, both accomplished jazz musicians who play saxophone at a fancy club and sometimes sit in on gigs at an underground night club. It’s at one of these gigs that young Pearl meets James Washington, a black GI who’s recorded with some of the most famous jazz musicians of the era. The smitten couple is denied permission to wed, so they decide to run away together. But their plans are thwarted when James has second thoughts and is transferred to Queensland.

Never fear, though. Pearl’s one determined Aussie who’s not about to let racism or war keep her from her man. Seizing opportunity, she shrugs off a botched suicide attempt and her reluctant engagement to the doctor who treated her and concocts a new plan to reunite with James, who’s now been transferred to a unit in New Guinea. Pearl should have stayed in Sydney and waited out the war for her hero’s return, since unfortunately, it’s at this point that the book begins a downward slide with repetitious action, naïve characters and ludicrous behaviors bogging down the core of the story until, blessedly, the book grinds its way to a predictable conclusion. By the end, it’s Pup the dog who deserves the most sympathy: She certainly wouldn’t be wagging her tail so much if she could see into her future.

When the book’s set in Sydney, it’s good; when it shifts to other locales, it’s less compelling.

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“Selecky’s debut collection of 10 short stories contains almost all the right ingredients.” from this cake is for the party

PROSPEROUS FRIENDS

Schutt, Christine Grove (224 pp.) $24.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-8021-2038-0

This third novel from Schutt (All Souls, 2008, etc.) is the desultory story of an unhappy marriage.

Ned and Isabel met in graduate school at Columbia. Pretty Isabel was smitten by the equally pretty Ned. Even then, Isabel had migraines caused by “sloth, envy, anger, uncertainty.” Both wanted to be writers; Ned had the ambition. After attending Ned’s cancer-stricken mother in California, they married in Vegas. We first meet them in London a year later, living frugally off Ned’s fellowship. Schutt is known for her elliptical style. What we gather through the ellipses about their sex life does not bode well: He’s importunate, she’s withholding. Isabel finds out she’s pregnant and decides on an abortion; she wants a career before motherhood. Ned attaches them to a rich, obnoxious banker (Schutt fixes him with a beady eye), and they vacation in Rome on his dime. Back stateside, Ned reconnects with Phoebe, an old flame. She’s newly married, but so what? Cheating is part of the fun. Isabel does it with Clive, an elderly, rich, married painter. Such a shame that the old boy is “practiced in taking advantage of the stunned or wounded.” He invites her up to Maine for some modeling. Isabel brings the uninvited Ned; if he drops Phoebe, she’ll stop servicing Clive. Her plan doesn’t work, though she cries and cries at a B&B on the way.

(Its ancient owners, who bookend the novel, have an old-school marriage, loving and loyal.) This is where the younger couple’s marriage essentially ends, though the reader must piece together the details; this is surely one ellipsis too many. Perhaps tiring of mopey Isabel and vapid Ned, Schutt shifts attention to Clive. There’s not much drama there either.

This material does not do justice to Schutt’s sharpedged vision of contemporary mores.

TWO-PART INVENTIONS

Schwartz, Lynne Sharon Counterpoint (288 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-61902-015-3

A novel based on a true story, a famous case of fraudulent classical music recordings. The story gives us people seamlessly grafting their flaws and growing into each other.

“Two-Part Inventions” is the name of a series of Bach compositions and a very apt title for this book about fraud. The facts surrounding the actual case of Joyce Hatto and her husband and recording engineer, William BarringtonCoupe, are well-known. Schwartz has taken the essentials and made it the story of a marriage. Her pianist is a Brooklyn-born 2198 | 1 October 2012 | fiction | kirkus.com |

prodigy, Suzanne Stellman. Her husband is Philip Markon. The book tells their stories separately, from childhood onward, until they meet at New York City’s High School of Music and Art. The book’s strength is here, in these sections: the peculiarity of the gifted child, who finds herself among philistines. Suzanne’s father regards her as his own property, a sort of prize, perhaps something won in the lottery. Suzanne’s mother is more understanding but too provincial and warns Suzanne away from the odd neighbor, Richard Penzer, who turns out to be her mentor, almost her savior. Philip, growing up in more difficult circumstances, masters the gift of gab. He grows into a courteous, serious, successful young man—also glib and amoral. The third figure in their chamber drama is the young and worldly émigré, Elena, who attracts both Philip and Suzanne: Does she possess what they lack?

Schwartz seems to strain after a message, almost a moral, at the expense of the complexity of her subtle characterizations. This is a weakness in an otherwise vigorous fiction. (Author events in New York and Boston)

THIS CAKE IS FOR THE PARTY

Selecky, Sarah Dunne/St. Martin’s (240 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-250-01142-8

Selecky’s debut collection of 10 short stories contains almost all the right ingredients.

In a group of stories that explore the power of love, friendships, familial relationships and all of the emotions these entanglements elicit, Selecky delves beneath the surface to provide an honest and insightful glimpse into her characters’ lives and situations, which sometimes parallel our own. Often witty and poignant, each story can stand on its own and contains components both familiar and unique: a woman who discovers that her engaged best friend is having an affair as she deals with a drunken ex who’s just shown up at her door and is coping with a disastrous and very funny dinner party; a young girl desperate to break away from her ultrareligious father who ends up making out with a total stranger in the back of a bus as she travels back home; a woman who hopes to conceive with her husband during a weekend getaway only to end up doubting his fidelity and making love with a friend; and a young man who questions his own values and the actions of his wife and her friends when he witnesses a mother’s neglect of her young child. While women may identify more readily with the dynamics of each situation and the characters that inhabit each tale, most readers will appreciate the author’s simple and straightforward writing. A few narratives aren’t as interesting as others, and it takes effort to get through them, but given the strength of the overall collection of stories, this weakness is easy to overlook.

Although some stories resonate more loudly than others, ultimately Selecky’s party is worth attending.

RU

Thúy, Kim Translated by Fischman, Sheila Bloomsbury (160 pp.) $14.00 paperback | Nov. 27, 2012 978-1-60819-898-6 In her slim, partly autobiographical first novel, Thúy, a Vietnamese-Canadian writing in French, seeks to make sense through memories of a life straddling East and West.

That life unfolds haphazardly. It belongs to Nguyen An Tinh. She was born into a prosperous family in Saigon in 1968.

When the Communists took over seven years later, they also took over part of their house. In 1978, the family became boat people, crossing the pirate-infested Gulf of Siam to reach Malaysia. From a foul refugee camp there, they traveled to Canada. Their first year was “heaven on earth,” and the country became their new home. At some point, Nguyen married a

white Westerner and gave birth to twins, one of them autistic.

So, you can package these details neatly, but it’s not something Thúy cares to do, preferring a montage to a chronological narrative, a progression sustained by images of family life. Some of the family members make the cut because they’re so colorful.

There’s Uncle Two (so named because he is the second born), a prominent Saigon politician and playboy who will report his fleeing sons to the Communist authorities; and retarded, unmarried Aunt Seven, who will mysteriously give birth in a convent. Nguyen’s mother, a disciplinarian, runs their Saigon house, while her father, puzzlingly, is a blank; both parents take menial jobs in Canada for their children’s future. Her husband only rates one mention; perhaps this is because she considers men “replaceable.” (Maternal love is the only love that counts.) Nguyen herself, a silent, self-effacing shadow as a child, slowly blossoms; on a return journey to Vietnam, she understands how her fragile Vietnamese psyche has been covered by the armor of Western self-confidence. What has she learned? Travel light; don’t regret what’s past; enjoy “the unspeakable beauty of renewal.”

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As a quest for identity, Thúy’s work is not altogether satisfying, but her powerful scene-setting makes her a writer to watch.

BROKEN LIKE THIS

Trasandes, Monica Dunne/St. Martin’s (336 pp.) $24.99 | $11.99 e-book | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-250-00683-7 978-1-250-01833-5 e-book Relaxed, happy, driving with friends along a coastal road in Spain, Kate Harrington lies in the back seat, caressing the new life in her belly, while her friends laugh in the front seat. Suddenly, there is a truck ahead and then a crash.

Kate’s accident sends her constellation of friends and family into disarray. The possibility of losing Kate is beyond bearing.

Back home in California, she’s left her two loves behind: Louis and Angela. Louis’ life has twined and untwined with Kate’s over the years, from high school buddies to lovers to fiances.

Angela knew something lay deep in Kate’s heart, some wall that kept even her lovers from getting too close, something that would send her to Brazil and Spain. She got her answer when Kate sent her a copy of her thesis, with its dedication page that thanked Angela and Louis. It also forgave Kate’s mother. Yet, as Angela and Louis remember meeting Kate, falling in love with her and the impossibilities of capturing her, the pace of Trasandes’ debut novel slows. The urgency of flying to Kate’s side fades, and it seems that the longer Kate remains uncommunicative, the longer they can linger in poignant memories, the longer they can keep her alive. Unfortunately, that meandering in memories makes it difficult to sustain suspense. The precariousness of Kate’s grip on life fades into background noise, leaving Angela and Louis center stage, yet neither has the charisma of Kate. When Kate’s stepfather, Don, arrives in Spain, a battle ensues between Louis, who loves her, and Don, who abused her.

The novel’s tempo picks up, yet the shift from bittersweet elegy to vengeful thriller is jarring.

Uncertain in focus, uneven in pacing, Trasandes’ novel’s strength lies in its sensitive portrayal of complex emotional lives.

A BOMB BUILT IN HELL

Vachss, Andrew Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (304 pp.) $15.95 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-307-95085-7 Vachss’ very first novel, often plundered for his later fiction (That’s How I Roll, 2012, etc.) but never before published, traces the rise, or fall, of a homegrown terrorist.

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To the untrained eye, Wesley never looks like anything but a loser. Headed for conviction in a gang fight, he agrees to enlist in the service instead of going to jail, but this time, the army doesn’t build men, and he’s tossed out of Korea with an undesirable discharge and soon headed for prison again. He falls under the sway of Carmine Trentoni, a gang leader who becomes his role model and guru, dispensing yards of Vachss’ trademark bitter wisdom (“think about the person you hate most in the world and smile”). Trentoni aims to turn Wesley into his legacy, an ice-cold hit man who’ll carry on the mobster’s enduring battle against the Man. Once he’s outlived his mentor and served his time, Wesley follows Trentoni’s detailed instructions, finding the cash Trentoni hid, contacting the mysterious gang lord Mr. Petraglia and setting up a rapid series of hits as precisely planned as they are brutal. But Wesley’s nihilism is deeper than Trentoni’s, and his escalating war against the establishment claims hundreds of victims: “[t]he people in the crowd on West 51st who got bombed by the grenade, the junkies blown up by the boobytrapped bag, whoever was within the fallout range of the building on Chrystie, the methadone clinic, the girl in the massage parlor….” After watching the effects of his assassination of Haitian dictator Papa Du’s son, Wesley realizes that not even his scorched-earth violence can bring about political change, and he prepares his own chilling exit.

History has caught up to Wesley’s bleak odyssey, repeatedly rejected for publication decades ago but now unnervingly prescient.

WE ARE WHAT WE PRETEND TO BE The First and Last Works

Vonnegut, Kurt Vanguard (176 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 9, 2012 978-1-59315-743-2

A bookended set of early and late works by the late, great and surely lamented dystopian Vonnegut (A Man Without a Country, 2005, etc.).

When Vonnegut died in 2007, he left behind piles and boxes of manuscripts. Among them, as his daughter Nanette writes in her foreword, was a piece, “Basic Training,” from the late 1940s or perhaps 1950—not so long, in other words, after Vonnegut’s military service and all the terrible moments he would bring from it into his work. The piece, much longer than the usual short story of the time but perhaps a little short of a novella, too, is a conte à clef about Vonnegut’s time as a teenager on a country farm haunted by the stern presence of a senior officer who’d seen service in the trenches in World War I and wasn’t about to put up with any of the young protagonist’s guff. That guff, of course, involves getting well acquainted with the General’s daughter, a local beauty; says one of the protagonist’s conversants, “The General says she’s a lot smarter than some of the livestock in the neighborhood, too.” The tale quickly devolves into a great big shaggy-dog story full of Vonnegut’s

“A quiet, sweet, slow-building story.” from Christmas in Cornwall

LITTLE CAESAR

soon-to-be-customary anarchic, cynical good humor; everyone goofs up, but just about everyone, including the General, retains humanity by virtue of simply being flawed. There’s none more flawed than the protagonist, though, whom the General greets as less than a fellow-well-met: “[A]nd what sunshine are you going to bring into our lives today? Shall we poison the well or burn the house down?” The second piece, unfinished at the time of Vonnegut’s death, is, well, of a piece, its language much saltier and its air much more world-weary; but if at times it seems as if Vonnegut is dipping into a well-used bag of tricks, at others it seems just as much that he’s putting a fresh coat of paint on classics such as Cat’s Cradle (1963), as with this nice little outburst: “You think people farts are bad? The polar ice caps are melting, I shit you not.”

A book that Vonnegut’s casual fans and students of his work alike will want to have.

Wieringa, Tommy Translated by Garrett, Sam Black Cat/Grove (336 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-8021-2049-6 The poet Philip Larkin’s famous observation that your mom and dad really mess you up is aptly illustrated in this offbeat, atmospheric novel by Dutch author Wieringa (Joe Speedboat, 2010, etc.). Though the narrative takes awhile to reveal itself, the book is ultimately about the psychological damage inflicted on Ludwig Unger, a gifted young pianist, by his absent father and manipulative yet seductive mother, Marthe.

Ludwig’s relationship with Marthe is initially peaceful, if sensually charged; their bonding ritual involves her dressing him in her clothes and painting his face with makeup. Their almostromance is breached when he learns—improbably, not until his teens—of her previous life as Eve LeSage, a world-famous star of pornographic films. Neither of them tries to understand why Ludwig is so enraged; she returns to California and resumes her career while Ludwig drifts passively through relationships with a string of women. Marthe remains in control during the book’s final third, when she is diagnosed with an early, still-curable form of breast cancer and against Ludwig’s wishes, refuses anything but ineffective alternative treatments. Her death is long and painful; in a metaphor perhaps too obvious, one of her last gestures is to grab Ludwig at her bedside and attempt to bite into his neck. The book leaves Ludwig with the overdue possibility of a future, after he’s lost Marthe and provoked a cathartic physical confrontation with his father. Because the action in the story is largely internal, the book’s pace can be frustrating— as can Ludwig himself, when he deserts a woman who’s an obvious lifeline in order to sink deeper into co-dependency.

This haunting book doesn’t try to sort out Ludwig’s internal life, it just places the reader in the middle. (Agent: David Marshall)

A DANGEROUS INHERITANCE A Novel of Tudor Rivals and the Secret of the Tower

Weir, Alison Ballantine (528 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-345-51189-8

A curiously structured historical whodunit by Tudor doyenne Weir (Henry VIII, 2001, etc.).

There’s a certain kind of historical obsessive, found mostly in Britain laboring alongside the Earl of Oxford vs. Shakespeare set, who argues that Richard III had nothing but love for the tykes known as the “boy princes” whom he shut away in the Tower of London, the Abu Ghraib of the late Middle Ages, from whom nary a peep would emerge again. A person of such a bent might wax wroth, to be sure, on reading Weir’s imaginative view of events. Other readers will wonder at her narrative strategy, bracketed by the points of view of two women separated by a century: Lady Jane Grey’s sister Katherine on one hand, and Kate Plantagenet on the other. Both young women, scarcely teenagers when thrust into the limelight, are bound up in the intrigues so beloved of royals and nobles back in the day; both wind up doing time in the pokey, where they have ample leisure to ponder the fates of the young boys. Weir’s tendency to didacticism sometimes slows what is already a complex tale, and the proceedings can be a little talky; just so, the interweaving of the tales of the two Kates doesn’t always quite work. Still, no one alive knows as much about the Tudors as Weir; her historical facts and speculations alike are watertight, and any reader of Hilary Mantel’s excellent Tudor evocations will want to explore this book as well. Weir’s language is often as glorious as the tongue back in those endlessly inventive days: “Through the enticement of your whoredom, you sought to entrap me with some poisoned bait under the color of sugared friendship.” Zounds!

Did Richard III do in or merely discourage—“ ‘suppressed,’ mark you, not murdered”—his youngster kin?

Read on. (Agent: Julian Alexander)

CHRISTMAS IN CORNWALL

Willett, Marcia Dunne/St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 30, 2012 978-1-250-00370-6

A widower and his young son find a new life in a convent community of elderly nuns, which is close to the estate that’s been in their family for generations and is still home to his mother and her parents.

The book begins on Epiphany and ends the following Christmas, spanning a tumultuous year in which a tiny community of nuns hopes to be spiritually guided toward the right choices for their future, and the futures of the laypeople who are like family |

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to them. Clem is their helper and jack-of-all-trades, and Janna is the commitment-phobic wanderer who’s found an unexpected home in the community, while Jakey, Clem’s 5-year-old son, adds a generous helping of childlike wonder to the elderly women and their resident priest. Nearby, Clem’s mother, Dossie, and his aging grandparents, Pa and Mo, live at The Court, an estate that’s been in the family for generations and has, until recently, been run as a B&B. The book opens with threats to the convent from shady developers who hope to play some legal tricks on the nuns to gain control of the property without compensating its residents; and to The Court, when Dossie’s brother and his grasping girlfriend put pressure on Mo and Pa to sell the property and split the proceeds. Dossie, who has a history of bad luck in romance, becomes involved with a new, mysterious man, Rupert, throwing a wrench in Mo and Pa’s plans to have Dossie restart the B&B business and keep the property self-sustaining, intact and in the family. Over the course of the book, we see relationships tighten and mature, and hinted truths come out in both expected and unexpected ways. While the book is classified as a romance, nothing is completely settled in the end as far as the real and potential romances in the book go, and the slow pace and overt spiritual slant to the plot will leave many modern romance readers dissatisfied. For the right reader, this book has charm, appealing characterization and a sprawling, unhurried storytelling style—though Willett’s present-tense writing and occasional head-hopping may be distracting. For most contemporary romance fans, the lack of a convincing happily-ever-after ending and the not-quite-concrete plot wrap-up that speaks to more spiritually decisive conclusions, rather than romantic ones, will likely make them feel disappointed and misled by the romance designation.

Overall, a quiet, sweet, slow-building story of spirit, faith, family and community and the love that binds them— but not really a romance.

she did nothing to stop him. As these feelings spill over into her professional life, Beth becomes frustrated with an insensitive and rigid administration that prefers to adhere to rules at all costs, even if by doing so, a student’s welfare might be endangered. She struggles to cope with the realization that, contrary to traditional beliefs, good guys don’t always triumph, and integrity is not valued by everyone. When colleagues excuse incidents of bullying and intolerance by sweeping them under the rug, and a group of mean girls threaten a fragile student and even Beth herself, Beth decides to take action. And while the author presents Meadow Brook High as an improbably teeming mass of bullies of all shapes, sizes and ages, she makes a valid point: Abuse of power can occur at any level, can take many forms and can harm numerous people, as it certainly does in this brutally honest, no-holds-barred narrative that, in addition to illustrating this point, expertly blends the account of Beth’s personal loss into the story.

Wolf writes with insight and authority about an issue that society cannot afford to ignore as she points out that, even though many schools have implemented effective programs to deal with bullying and intolerance, recent cases serve as proof that institutions like Meadow Brook High do, indeed, exist and that more needs to be done. (Agent: Jennifer Lyons)

THIS BOOK IS FULL OF SPIDERS Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It

Wong, David Dunne/St. Martin’s (384 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-312-54634-2

Violence, soy sauce and zombie survivalists abound in this clever and funny sequel to John Dies at the End (2009).

One of the great things about discovering new writers, especially in the narrow range of hybrid-genre comedic novels, is realizing that they’re having just as much fun making this stuff up as you are reading it. Sitting squarely with the likes of S.G. Browne and Christopher Moore, the pseudonymous Wong (Cracked editor Jason Pargin) must be pissing himself laughing at his own writing, even as he’s giving fans an even funnier, tighter and justifiably insane entry in the series. A quick prologue catches us up on Wong and friend David, whose first adventure was chock full of psychotropic drugs and X-Files style paranormality. The great thing about these characters is how normal they are amid the madness. “We’re not special, it’s just the result of some drugs we took,” Wong explains. “Just for future reference, if you’re ever at a party and a Rastafarian offers you a syringe full of a shiny black substance that crawls around on its own like the Blob, don’t take it. And don’t call us, either. We get enough bullshit from strangers as it is.” This time around, the boys are trying to mitigate an influx of spidery invaders that soon blossoms into a full-fledged zombie massacre. The humor

DANNY’S MOM

Wolf, Elaine Arcade (256 pp.) $24.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-61145-694-3 Former educator Wolf pens a debut adult novel (Camp, 2012) about an American high school where bullying and intolerance seem to be the rule rather than the exception.

High school guidance counselor Beth Maller’s world is turned inside out on a wintry evening when her son, Danny, dies in a car crash on an icy road. Returning to work three weeks later, Beth does her best to rein in her grief and perform her day-to-day duties with little emotional support from school administrators or her husband, Joe. While a small group of teachers and her father try to provide comfort, Beth increasingly turns to a student’s grandmother for encouragement and understanding. She blames her husband for allowing her son to drive that night and is wracked by guilt because 2202

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here is unforced and good-naturedly gory. Anyone who enjoyed the recent films The Cabin in the Woods or Tucker & Dale vs. Evil will find themselves right at home. An upcoming (cult?) film adaptation of John Dies at the End promises to lure new readers.

A joyful return to the paroxysms of laughter lurking in the American Midwest.

CAUSE OF DEATH

Adams, Jane A. Severn House (208 pp.) $28.95 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-0-7278-8173-1

THE LAWGIVER

Wouk, Herman Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-4516-9938-8

A killer’s release from prison complicates life for retired actress Rina Martin (The Power of One, 2009, etc.) on the eve of her return to television.

Everyone knows that once out of jail, convicted hit man Stan Holden will inevitably make his way back to Peverill Lodge. Frantham’s DI Sebastian MacGregor actually looks forward to Stan’s return, knowing that Rina and her brood of quirky lodgers offer his

The nonagenarian novelist takes a curious, epistolary path toward the epic about Moses that has long defeated him.

In his 2000 memoir, The Will to Live On, novelist Wouk (A Hole in Texas, 2004, etc.) wrote of his decades-long struggle to write The Lawgiver, which he intended to be a doorstopper about the life of Moses. This Lawgiver is a slighter, more madcap and more meta affair, focused on an effort to produce a film version of the story that would out-DeMille DeMille.

Wouk has written himself into the plot: As the story opens, he’s approached by a high-powered film producer to consult on a script by an untested young director, Margolit. The flurry of memos, emails, Skype-session transcripts, news clippings, etc., that make up the novel roughly cohere into a comedy of errors.

The chief financier is determined to marshal algae as an alternative energy source, Margolit’s favorite candidate for the role of Moses is a modest Australian actor stuck with a pernicious agent, her old shul-mates are coming out of the woodwork, and an old flame is pursuing her yet again. Wouk doesn’t pretend to make this anything more than a lighthearted romp—cameos abound of Wouk’s wife cautioning him not to take this Lawgiver business too seriously. Still, Wouk expends little energy connecting the dots among the algae-fuel business, the romantic subplot, Margolit’s estranged father and the theology of the Moses back story, which Wouk clearly takes seriously but touches upon only lightly. At 97, Wouk still has plenty of enthusiasm for assembling the broad cast of characters that marked widescreen works like The Winds of War. The difference here is how it results in a weak, shtick-y assemblage of riffs on a fickle God and stereotypical film impresarios.

A breezy romp about movies and religion that gives both short shrift.

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greatest chance of rehabilitation. Mac’s counterpart in Exeter, DI Dave Kendall, is more skeptical. His stint on the organized crime squad tells him that where Holden goes, baddies like Haines and Vashinsky are sure to follow. And sure enough, Santos and Mason, two of Haines’ thugs, beat Stan senseless the minute he arrives in town. But their goal isn’t to kill Stan. It’s to recruit him to take out an even deadlier threat: ex-Vashinsky associate Karen Parker, who’s in town briefly to set up a trust for her teenage brother, George, before she drops out of sight for good. Since dealing with the squabbling mobsters is a fulltime job for Mac and his sergeant, Frank Baker, they leave the task of investigating the appearance of a modern-day bone at an archaeological dig in the hands of PC Andy Nevins, who just finished his probationary year. Will Andy discover the origins of the mysterious femur before full-scale mob warfare disrupts the quiet seaside village—and before Rina leaves for London to start filming the revival of Lydia Marchant Investigates?

A promisingly tangled skein of mysteries unravels abruptly in MacGregor’s sixth case.

Benison, C.C. Delacorte (512 pp.) $24.00 | Oct. 30, 2012 978-0-385-34446-3

The vicar of Thornford Regis finds his parish riddled with gossip and crimes, past and present.

The Reverend Tom Christmas and his daughter, Miranda, settled in Thornford Regis after the murder of his wife devastated his family. Although he doesn’t care for bagpipes and loathes haggis, Tom finds himself attending the annual Burns supper at a local hotel currently closed for renovation. The owner, Australian Will Moir, seems a bit distracted. Tom has no chance to learn why, for Will’s body is shortly found in the tower at Thorn Court Country Hotel during a massive snowstorm.

Police investigators learn that he was poisoned with yew seeds.

When Judith Ingley, a retired nurse who years before lived at Thorn Court, shows up at the closed hotel, Tom takes her in.

Many villagers think vicarage housekeeper Madrun Prowse, who provided the yew berry tarts for the dinner, simply made a deadly mistake. The police, however, have plenty of suspects who may have wanted Will dead. A family who lost their son to suicide after Will verbally attacked him is the most likely. But as Tom begins to learn some long-hidden secrets, he realizes that the killer is far from obvious. A second murder redoubles his efforts to find the truth.

Tom’s second (Twelve Drummers Drumming, 2011) is a must-read for lovers of classic English mysteries, chockfull of suspects, red herrings and details of village life.

(Agent: Dean Cooke)

DEAD ENDS

Balzo, Sandra Severn House (208 pp.) $28.95 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-0-7278-8174-8 You can run, but you can’t hide, reporter AnnaLise Griggs discovers when her ex-lover shows up in her North Carolina hometown just in time to see his wife murdered.

AnnaLise came back to sleepy Sutherton to help her mom, Daisy, cope with random bouts of memory loss (Running on Empty, 2011). Putting miles between herself and her blown-over affair with Urban County, Wis., District Attorney Ben Rosewood was just a little bonus. So the crime reporter is less than pleased when Ben shows up at Mama Philomena’s on Main Street just as Daisy’s taping up the day’s lunch specials next to a flyer for next month’s Woolly Worm Festival in nearby Banner Elk. He swears he’s there only to drop off his daughter, Suzanne, at nearby University of the Mountain. And sure enough, he’s got Suzanne in tow, followed by his wife, Tanja, in her bright yellow Porsche—the same yellow Porsche Police Chief Chuck Greystone spots at the bottom of the gorge below the Sutherton Bridge while he’s rescuing AnnaLise from the effects of following Daisy’s not-quite-legal shortcut to Ida Mae Babb’s mountaintop chalet. Ben takes Tanja’s death hard, accusing everyone in sight of complicity: Joy Tamarack, owner of the spa where Tanja enjoyed a glass of wine shortly before her plunge from the bridge; Josh Eames, the handyman dating Suzanne who rushed to the scene of AnnaLise’s wipeout; even AnnaLise herself. But when mechanic Earl Lawling finds a bullet in the Porsche’s wheel well, it’s clear to Chuck that he’s looking for a coldblooded killer.

Balzo’s cases for AnnaLise pack the punch that her Maggy Thorsen tales lack, swapping a tepid cup of coffee for a bracing belt of chardonnay.

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THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS

Bowen, Rhys Berkley Prime Crime (320 pp.) $24.95 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-425-25278-9

Being 35th in line for the British throne is no sinecure.

Lady Georgiana Rannoch, distant heir to the Empire, has resigned herself to a dull Christmas in the family’s cold and cheerless Scottish castle with her henpecked brother, his awful wife and her even more repugnant family when an opportunity arises to act as a paid hostess at a house party. Arriving in the picture-perfect village of Tiddleton-under-Lovey, where her actress mother and Noel Coward are spending a working Christmas, she’s warmly greeted by the Hawse-Gorzley family, who are providing an old-fashioned Christmas to a wide assortment of paying guests. Georgiana is thrilled to discover that the man she loves, Darcy O’Mara, is the nephew of Mrs. Hawse-Gorzley and is spending Christmas with the family. True, |

UNDER THE EYE OF GOD

a neighbor seems to have shot himself accidentally while sitting in a pear tree, but it is only when more deaths follow on a daily basis that Georgiana, who is no stranger to sleuthing, takes an interest. The guests are spooked, even though only locals seem to be targeted. The investigating officer calls on Georgiana’s grandfather, a retired London policeman who’s acting as a butler for his actress daughter, for help with the deaths, which the officer still can’t believe are murders, perhaps because he’s preoccupied with the convicts who’ve escaped from Dartmoor Prison. It takes a while for the penny to drop, but Georgiana finally sees a pattern to the deaths, though the clever killer will not be easy to catch.

The sixth in Bowen’s delightful Royal Spyness mysteries set in the 1930s (Naughty in Nice, 2011, etc.) gives readers a blueprint for an old-fashioned English Christmas, complete with traditional recipes, games, drinks and homicides.

Charyn, Jerome MysteriousPress.com (222 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Oct. 30, 2012 978-1-4532-7099-8 Isaac Sidel, commissioner of police turned New York City mayor, adds a new title to his résumé: vice president-elect of the United States.

Added to the Democratic ticket in 1988 to juice the appeal of J. Michael Storm, a baseball czar with feet of clay (Citizen Sidel, 1999), Isaac swiftly becomes the main story. Crowds and Republicans adore him, ignoring the presidential candidate who took 47 states. Even J. Michael’s 12-year-old daughter, Marianna, takes up a staunch position at “Uncle Isaac’s” side, prompting fearful echoes of Lolita. Amid all the hoopla, however, deeper currents swirl. A Korean War vet aiming at Isaac during a trip to San Antonio shoots his Secret Service bodyguard instead. Isaac

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“Like other entries in this pleasing series, this one is much stronger on history than mystery.” from the song of the nightingale

THE CORPSE OF ST JAMES’S

finds David Pearl, the banker who was the longtime silent partner to Isaac’s glover father, holed up in Manhattan’s Ansonia Hotel brewing heaven knows what dastardly schemes. Isaac falls hard for David’s inamorata, Inez, nee Trudy Winckleman, but knows their relationship can’t possibly end well. Instead of readying himself for the vice presidency, the Big Man prefers to play out his last days as the mayoral savior of the five boroughs.

All around him, meanwhile, career politicians, campaign consultants, political strategists, psychiatrists and astrologers do what they do best: discern conspiracies, take fright and counter them with their own megalomaniac fantasies. All of this uproar in the national hall of mirrors, in which friends are really enemies and enemies are really nuts, perfectly suits Charyn’s tropism for antic mythologizing. The new threats arriving on every page are often extended, inflated and dispatched in time for the next paragraph break.

The result is a political cocktail almost as fizzy and inventive as the Onion or the Wall Street Journal in which every development is dark, urgent and apocalyptic, and none of it matters a bit.

Dams, Jeanne M. Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7278-8185-4

A trip to Buckingham Palace turns into a nightmare murder investigation.

American expat Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, have been invited to Buckingham to see their friend Jonathan Quinn, former Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, receive the George Cross. Jonathan was badly injured when he saved a child trapped in a burning building. The child survived, but not Jonathan’s promising career. On their way out, they run into Jemima, an honorary cousin of Jonathan who works in the palace. As they take a turn in St James’ Park, they discover a body under a bush in an area that’s supposed to be closed to the public. When Chief Superintendent Carstairs takes over the case, the ever-curious Dorothy thinks her involvement has ended until a call from Jonathan changes her mind. Jonathan had recognized the body as that of Jemima’s daughter, Melissa, who had lived with his honorary Aunt Letty, a woman to whom he owed much that was good in his life. Afraid that identifying the body would cost Jemima her job at the palace, he said nothing. Forced by Dorothy and Alan to reveal all, however, he makes himself the chief suspect. Although she’s duly warned off by the police, Dorothy’s not about to give up looking for the killer, especially after Jonathan, worn down with pain and worry, takes an overdose. Was the killer a random stranger, or does the answer to the puzzle lie in the past?

The latest for Dorothy (The Evil That Men Do, 2012, etc.) is one of Dams’ better mysteries, packed with the details sure to delight anglophiles.

THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE

Clare, Alys Severn House (240 pp.) $28.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7278-8194-6

The brutal reign of King John makes life difficult for all England, including the people who live in and near Hawkenlye Abbey.

With England under an interdict from the pope, King John is squeezing every penny from his people, leaving many starving and homeless. Some have taken to robbery and rape. When the bodies of three such men are found buried near the abbey, one of them with strange marks carved into his chest, the sheriff asks for help from Sir Josse D’Acquin. Josse has his own problems feeding his people. The woman he loves, former abbess Helewise, is moving back to her cell near the abbey to help the sick and starving. His son Ninian is still in France, entangled with a religious group hunted by the powers that be. Ninian’s love, Little Helewise, is pregnant, and Josse’s daughter Meggie is involved with a foreigner who is suspected of the murders. When more miscreants are killed, the sovereign’s lackeys launch a search for the killer, and Meggie and her new friend flee to France. They are soon followed

by Josse and Helewise, who hope to find Ninian and tell him that he can return because he is no longer accused of murder.

In the meantime, another man is captured and incarcerated at the abbey, where only the current abbess and her nuns are left to help him.

Like other entries in this pleasing series (The Rose of the World, 2011, etc.), this one is much stronger on history than mystery.

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THE OLD GRAY WOLF

Doss, James D. Minotaur (352 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 30, 2012 978-0-312-61371-6

Doss, who died this past spring, parts company with Charlie Moon (Coffin Man, 2011, etc.) in this 17th and final go-round.

It’s an ignominious ending for purse snatcher LeRoy Hooten, who enters the hereafter when Granite City chief of police Scott Parris beans him with a can of black-eyed peas while his pal Charlie Moon, part-time deputy, former Ute tribal investigator, inveterate gambler and laconic rancher, looks on. Hooten’s mom, Francine, who takes offense at the lucky pitch that caused her son’s demise, calls on the notorious “cowboy assassin” to take out Parris and Moon, thus setting in motion an all-consuming debacle that strews bodies and witticisms from Illinois to Colorado, with stopovers along |

A DEATH IN THE SMALL HOURS

the way for spirit sightings, pitukupf visitations, double dates, engagements and disengagements, grumblings from Moon’s irascible old auntie Daisy Perkia, and deep sighs and despair from lovesick Ute-Papago orphan Sarah Frank. Of course there are a few detours to allow a retired Texas Ranger, his private-eye-wannabe granddaughter and a luscious FBI agent to have their say and slay while still leaving room for red herrings that jack up the suspense. In all, five will expire, assumed identities will crumble and not a single reader will get through a page without a guffaw or two.

The puckish Doss, who combined charm, mayhem and deviously clever clues, will be much missed.

Finch, Charles Minotaur (320 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-250-01160-2

A member of Parliament prefers investigating over speechifying.

Even though he’s still called upon for advice by his protégé John Dallington, Charles Lenox has long since given up his practice as an investigator. A newborn daughter and a request from his party to give the opening speech at a Parliamentary session carry him even further away from his former career. So would an invitation from his uncle Frederick Ponsonby to bring his family for a visit to his lovely estate in Plumbley, Somerset—if it weren’t sharpened by a hint of mysterious vandalism.

Deciding that it just may be the perfect place for the peace and quiet he needs to write his speech, Charles repairs with his wife, Jane, their infant, Sophie, and her nursemaid, the formidable Miss Taylor, to Plumbley, where Charles looks more closely into several cases of apparently senseless property damage. The case takes on a more serious turn when a young police constable is found stabbed to death. The locals are suspicious of Capt. Musgrave, a retired naval officer who married a local girl and moved to the village. His wife is rarely seen, and most of his neighbors are convinced that he’s mistreating her. Charles has the help of Dallington, who’s staying with them in disgrace after a drunken spree. Then, Freddie is kidnapped, and Charles must do everything possible to solve the crime and rescue his beloved uncle.

The sixth in Finch’s steadily improving series (A Burial at Sea, 2011, etc.) develops the congenial continuing characters further while providing quite a decent mystery.

AFTER CLARE

Eccles, Marjorie Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7278-8197-7 A garden renovation project turns into a murder investigation.

The Vavasour and Markham families are old friends as well as neighbors. For generations, their children have walked back and forth over the path connecting the Vavasours’ Leysmorton House to the Markhams’ Steadings. At one time, it even looked as if Emily Vavasour and Hugh Markham would make a match of it. But Emily was wooed away to India by dashing Paddy Fitzallan, son of an impoverished baronet. Since Paddy’s death, Lady Emily has lived in Madeira. She comes back to Leysmorton, occupied now by her cousin Dirk Stronglove and his spinster half sister, Marta Heeren, only to attend the wedding of Hugh’s granddaughter Dee to the rich but boring Hamish Erskine. The old place enchants her, and before going home to Spain, she decides on two projects: restoring the library in consultation with Poppy Drummond, a distant cousin of Dee’s who ekes out a living as a decorator, and reestablishing the rose garden with the help of Rosie Markham, Dee’s gangly younger sister. Digging in the dirt dredges up memories of Emily’s older sister, Clare, an aspiring artist who disappeared without a trace after Emily and Paddy’s wedding. She and Clare used to play by the huge yew tree that still stands at a corner of the garden. But turning over Leysmorton’s rich soil also uncovers a more modern mystery: the bones of Peter Sholto, who deserted days after the end of the Great War but never came home. Inspector Novak of Scotland Yard has his sights trained on Peter’s death, while Lady Emily longs for resolution of the older puzzle, her sister’s disappearance.

Eccles (The Cuckoo’s Child, 2011, etc.) swivels deftly between past and present, mystery and romance in her latest historical hybrid.

DICK FRANCIS’S BLOODLINE

Francis, Felix Putnam (368 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-399-16080-6

The late Dick Francis’ son and sometime collaborator follows his first solo canter (Dick Francis’s Gamble, 2011) with more of the same.

Once upon a time, Mark Shillingford and his twin sister, Clare, both wanted to be jockeys. Clare succeeded, Mark didn’t. But since he still follows his twin’s races both personally and professionally, as an announcer and television interviewer, he’s on hand to call a race Clare deliberately loses, though no one else notices. Over a tense dinner afterward, Clare doesn’t deny her guilt, passing her behavior off as no big deal, something she’s done perhaps four or five times before. Several hours later, she’s dead after a header from the balcony of a London hotel. Did she fall, or was she pushed—and what was she doing in Park Lane in the |

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RETURN OF THE THIN MAN

first place when she’d told Mark she was going straight to her Newmarket home? Cold-shouldered by both the police, who blandly assume from a note she left behind that Clare killed herself, and his domineering father, whose only reaction to his youngest daughter’s death is angry gloom, Mark resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery. It’s just as well that he’s developing a new interest, since his married lover is about to drop him and his job is threatened by a hungry rival. Mark’s inquiries will bring him up against a spiteful racing correspondent, several questionable trainers, a possible new romance and an ingenious serial blackmailer who seems intent on continuing his extortion demands from beyond the grave.

The usual pleasures of Francis father and son, from inside dope about announcing races to carefully controlled bursts of physical violence, fly by with all the speed of a promising filly on her second one-mile run.

Hammett, Dashiell Mysterious Press (240 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-8021-2050-2

Yet another trip to the Hammett archive discloses the two screen stories on which the films After the Thin Man (1936) and Another Thin Man (1939) were based, along with a bonus, an unproduced (and probably unproducible) outline for a Sequel to The Thin Man. The biggest surprise here is how closely the husband-and-wife team of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett hewed to Hammett’s novella-length stories in preparing the two films’ screenplays. Fans of the films will find virtually all the suspects and plot twists already present in Hammett, together with much of the banter between retired detective Nick Charles and his socialite wife, Nora, all wrapped up in the lightly comic tone established

by The Thin Man (1934). Who would have thought that Hammett himself wrote Nick’s burlesque response to the invitation from Nora’s aunt’s butler to “walk this way,” or that Goodrich and Hackett were mainly responsible for streamlining and simplifying Hammett’s twisty storylines and providing more business for Nora, whom Hammett tends to slight in favor of her more active husband? After the Thin Man—which takes the couple back to San Francisco to meet the corpse of Nora’s former gardener, and eventually that of her cousin Selma’s missing husband—is the more amusing, more inventive, and more satisfyingly mystifying of the two. Another Thin Man—which, borrowing much of its material from Hammett’s story “The Farewell Murder,” presents the couple with an infant son before they’re summoned to the Long Island estate of imperious Colonel Burr MacFay, the expartner of Nora’s late father, whose choleric conviction that he’s going to be murdered is eventually proved correct—offers more for Nora to do, though in an altogether more domestic role.

Judicious editors Richard Layman and Julie M. Rivett provide a notable addendum to the Hammett canon, even if both tales and their brief addendum read like screen treatments and the volume’s title perpetuates the canard that the thin man is Nick Charles. (Agent: Joy Harris)

BELUGA

Gavin, Rick Minotaur (304 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-250-01522-8 Fifteen more rounds of violent farce for sometime–repo man Nick Reid.

Since splitting the $300,000 they lifted from a meth king at the end of Ranchero (2011), Nick and his partner, Desmond, have naturally been looking for investments that are safe and lucrative. Now, Larry Carothers, the ex-con brother of Desmond’s ex-girlfriend Shawnica, comes to them with an investment opportunity that promises to be neither. Larry, who’s christened himself Beluga LaMonte, knows where there’s a truckload of stolen Michelin tires just begging to be hijacked and resold. With an investment of $50,000—all right, $30,000—he’ll be ready to roll. Predictably, the folks who originally stole the tires have grown possessive about them. Lucas Shambrough, the genteel citizen behind the theft, puts on such highfalutin airs that he obviously thinks he belongs in another book. Instead of meting out violent retribution against Beluga and his backers, he’s content to send out his secret weapon: a female assassin named Mako, or Isis, or Alice Marie Fennick, costumed as a ninja schoolgirl, who leaves Beluga’s prison buddy Skeeter in a world of hurt and aims to spread the pain wherever she can. Nor can Nick and Desmond count on much help from the local law, since Choctaw/African-American cop Tula Raintree mainly seems interested in slapping the cuffs on Nick every chance she gets. As Nick, chained in a basement awaiting the ninja’s ministrations, sagely reflects, “It was hard at that point to imagine that this had all started because of some tires.”

Gavin updates the good-old-boy charm of the Smokey and the Bandit movie series but adds some sharp narration by a hero who’s still plenty dumb enough to get into some seriously funny trouble.

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THE ANATOMIST’S WIFE

Huber, Anna Lee Berkley Prime Crime (368 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-425-25328-1 Even a remote Scottish castle in the 1830s is not far enough removed from society to shield a talented artist from her fearsome reputation.

Since the death of her husband, Lady Kiera Darby has been living with her sister Alana and her brother-in-law Philip quietly painting. After |

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A NOT SO MODEL HOME

her husband forced Kiera to illustrate an anatomical book he was writing, the recent Burke and Hare scandal caused people to look upon Kiera with fear and loathing when her part in the book was revealed. After 16 peaceful months, Alana invites a diverse group of titled friends to a house party only to find one of them, Lady Godwin, stabbed in the garden. When several of the assembled company immediately accuse Kiera, Philip asks houseguest Sebastian Gage, whose father is a noted investigator, to look into the crime, forcing Kiera to work with him.

Her unwelcome expertise shows that not only was Lady Godwin’s throat slit; someone cut a child out of her womb. Since Lord Godwin has long been away in India, the sleuthing pair look elsewhere for the father of the child. They soon learn that Lady Godwin had spread her favors among many men. Kiera is attracted to Gage even though she does not know whether he regards her as a suspect. She does know that it will be no easy task to solve the crime in the four days before the fiscal prosecutor arrives, given that most of the guests have already identified Kiera as the killer.

Huber’s debut, first in a planned series, reads like a cross between a gothic novel and a mystery with a decidedly unusual heroine. (Agent: Kevan Lyon)

James, David Kensington (304 pp.) $23.00 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7582-0632-9

A realtor turns reality star in a comedy caper where fans may end up rooting for the killer.

Being called upon to act as on-screen bestie to hair-care mogul Ian Forbes is not exactly in Amanda Thorne’s normal line of work, but now that a hush has fallen over the realty business in Palm Springs, she finds it hard to refuse the carrot of being allowed to sell Ian’s house after filming is over. After all, Ian won’t need it anymore; the title of his reality show, Things Are a Bit Iffy, is meant to remind viewers that he’s trying to find a boyfriend/heir to his massive fortune, since he’s been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and hasn’t long to live. Show creator Jeremy Collins has assembled what must be the most dramatic bunch of queens ever to live under a single roof. They play their reality roles to a T, alternating between vying for Ian’s affections and sleeping with each other, with bitch-slapping thrown in here and there for good measure. The drama is hard to resist for Amanda, much to the chagrin of her real-life best friend and ex-husband, Alex. He’s sure that no good can come of the fight for fame, and he may be proven right when one of the young studs in Ian’s stable is murdered in the midst of filming. Now, Amanda feels obligated to get to the bottom of things, if only because her pseudo-boyfriend and cop, Ken, is away taking care of his ailing mother.

Once again, James (Three Bedrooms, Two Baths, and One Very Dead Corpse, 2010) charms with characters that are bursting with, well, character. Just be aware that this is one title that’s NSFW (Not Safe for Work). (Agent: Alison J. Picard)

CITY OF SAINTS

Hunt, Andrew Minotaur (320 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-250-01579-2 Historian Hunt’s first novel, winner of the 2011 Tony Hillerman Prize, revisits an unsolved real-life murder in 1930 Salt Lake City.

Someone was angry enough at socialite Helen Kent Pfalzgraf to run her over with her own Cadillac no less than seven times. Was it her longsuffering husband, Hans, a noted Utah obstetrician? His daughter, Anna, who says she adored her stepmother? One of the lovers Helen kept in thrall—perhaps local mining executive C.W. Alexander; Prince Farzad, the Persian suitor she met in Paris; or movie star Roland Lane, with whom she’d made a Hollywood screen test? Salt Lake County deputy Art Oveson, 29 and still struggling to emerge from the long shadow of his late father and his three older brothers, all of them in law enforcement, is smart, persistent, and willing to lie when he has to despite the strong Mormon faith that sets him apart from his hard-bitten partner, Roscoe Lund. He wonders how Helen’s murder might be linked to the hit-and-run accident that killed Dr. Pfalzgraf ’s first wife or the death two years earlier of Dr. Everett Alvin Wooley, an abortionist Dr. Pfalzgraf had campaigned against. But he’ll have to contend with a paranoid, manipulative boss who’s ready to fire him on a moment’s notice if he’s to close a challenging case whose title (spoiler alert) turns out to be broadly ironic.

Hunt does a creditable job tying up all the loose ends the unknown killer left behind 80 years ago and an even better job evoking the time and place in which he lived.

A FATAL WINTER

Malliet, G.M. Minotaur (384 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-312-64797-1

Priestly duties fall by the wayside when Max Tudor must investigate what appears to be a murder in an upper-crust family living in a local castle.

Traveling back to his home in Nether Monkslip, Anglican priest Max Tudor finds himself stuck in a train compartment with Lady Baynard of Chedrow Castle and having rather unpriestly thoughts of annoyance and impatience. Unfortunately, Max is soon summoned to Chedrow Castle by DCI Cotton, of the Monkslipsuper-Mare police, who eagerly seeks Max’s MI5 experience to investigate at the castle when Lady Baynard’s brother and titleholder, Lord Footrustle, is murdered. It being the |

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holidays, the castle is brimming with familial suspects whose loss will doubtless also be their pecuniary gain. Soon after his arrival, Lady Baynard’s body is found. Now, the pressure is on Max to determine who most profited from the deaths of the brother and sister. Some relatives, including Lord Footrustle’s daughter, Jocasta, and his former wife, Gwynyth, seem too out of touch with reality to be complicit in the deaths. By contrast, adopted granddaughter Lamorna’s quiet snooping and religious moralizing send her to the top of Max’s suspect list.

DCI Cotton implores Max to find the murderer lest any other lives be lost. Max, however, is distracted by thoughts of his dear friend Awena Owen, whose assistance he can’t help but desire, though he’s becoming aware that his thoughts about her amount to more than just thoughts.

The handsome priest-turned-detective hero who debuted in Wicked Autumn (2011) nearly meets his match in a suspect list that rivals the telephone directory.

Masterton, Graham Severn House (224 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7278-8189-2 A historic hotel appears to be possessed by the ghost of its former owner and her creepy son.

Described as an “unredeemed hippy,” Sissy Sawyer believes that she can see into the future with the help of her DeVane deck, beautifully illustrated cards that help her interpret what will come to pass. When her stepnephew, Billy, stops by with his new girlfriend on a rainy Connecticut day, Sissy immediately senses that the beautiful girl has questions for both her and her cards and sends Billy out so that the two may talk alone. T-Yon, Cajun-speak for Petite Lilian, was raised in Louisiana with her brother, Everett. Now she’s had a disturbing and embarrassing nightmare about herself, her brother and her brother’s latest project, The Red Hotel in Baton Rouge. Sissy wishes she had better news to share, but T-Yon’s cards suggest that Everett is in grave danger. So Sissy and T-Yon catch a southbound flight to see if they can help in person. Everett, meanwhile, is determined to make the opening of his latest project a success and is more annoyed than afraid when deputy hotel manager Luther finds a blood-soaked rug in one of the hotel rooms. Although he doesn’t believe the rumors giving the other guests freesons (goose bumps), Everett knows he needs to put a stop to local chatter about the hotel being possessed by the ghost of former owner Mrs. Slider with the assistance of her son, Shem. T-Yon hopes that she can make a believer out of Everett before her dream becomes a reality.

Though the tropes invoked by Masterton (Festival of Fear, 2012, etc.) may be more tired than tried and true, his imaginative details and storyline more than compensate for any lack of originality.

THE BUZZARD TABLE

Maron, Margaret Grand Central Publishing (320 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-0-446-55582-1 Every family has secrets. Some are even worth telling.

Deborah Knott never admitted to her husband, Dwight, how she got her judgeship. Dwight never told her what happened in Germany when he was a Company man. And his son, Cal, fessed up to Deborah that he wanted to be adopted only after a pal ratted him out and she confronted him about it. But these little evasions pale in comparison to the big one that’s motivated Martin Crawford to come to Colleton County, N.C., and settle in a tenant house owned by his ailing aunt, who’s marshaling all her remaining Southern charm to entertain two other visiting relatives, NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald and her mother, Anne, the Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist. Because Martin spends most of his time taking pictures of vultures—at least, that’s what he says—he happens to be in the vicinity of the trash site where someone has dumped an all too promiscuous realtor. He also happens to be nearby when teenager Jeremy Harper is bashed into a coma. And unfortunately for Martin, he happens to have followed the vultures to the local airstrip, where he may have entered a pilot’s motel room and snapped his neck. Is Martin responsible for all the mayhem, or are the attacks and murders unrelated? Sheriff ’s Deputy Dwight, with an assist from Sigrid, a memory that resurfaces for Anne and an alibi that disintegrates, finally assigns the right motives—jealousy and revenge— to the right persons, discomfiting a philandering husband and unsettling the FBI and the CIA. Maron (Three-Day Town, 2011, etc.) adroitly melds ugly American (open) government secrets with classic whodunit intrigue and stirs the pot by itemizing domestic travails that will touch readers’ hearts.

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THE TASTE OF WORMWOOD

McCarthy, Keith Severn House (224 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7278-8190-8

DCI Beverley Wharton (Soul Seeker, 2011, etc.) finds that her new rank does indeed bring her “more pay, but a lot more shit” in this grim tale of smuggling within smuggling.

Long-haul trucker Arthur Meadows thinks he’s just sneaking two young Turkish women into Gloucestershire to work the sex trade. Rashid Malik thinks his worries about the women will end when Arthur drops them off at his house. Poacher Harry Weston thinks he can walk away from a late-night accident that leaves a lorry more seriously banged up than his own vehicle. Farm widow Amelia |

“McRae spices her juicy mystery with some intriguing veggie lore.” from resurrectionist

RESURRECTIONIST

Stark thinks that her dog, Duke, will protect her from anyone bold enough to trespass on her land. All of them are wrong, and they all end up dead. So do the two young women, though it’s not at all clear what killed them: total organ failure, pathologist Dr. John Eisenmenger tells Beverley, that has some of the marks of radiation poisoning. So it looks as if the women were being smuggled into the U.K. only incidentally, as cover for the smuggling of radioactive material. McCarthy lets readers know early on that the remarkably similar murders, all executed with military precision, are the work of damaged Afghanistan war vet Marty Millikan and his mother, Jacqueline. But very few readers will be sharp enough to suss out Jacqueline’s motive or her climactic plan that brings the investigation to such a crashing halt.

Fans will race to the end, if only to see whether Beverley, who faces more of the same love-hate relationship with Eisenmenger, the agony of second-guessing herself, and the usual professional and personal infighting, will survive to face another grueling case next year.

McGee, James Pegasus Crime (480 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 14, 2012 978-1-60598-387-5

Why would an escapee from Bedlam need an endless supply of fresh cadavers?

Reverend Tombs makes it his habit to visit Col. Titus Hyde during his incarceration for melancholia in Britain’s notorious madhouse, Bedlam. The two men reminisce about army service over a chessboard until one midnight finds one of the two lying in the cell while the other strides off to freedom. The chief magistrate calls in Matthew Hawkwood, a Regency supersleuth employed as a Bow Street Runner, and asks him to investigate very quietly so as not to alarm the citizenry. The matter seems to resolve itself when the perp shouts his confession just before setting fire to a church and leaping into the flames. But that hardly

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STALKING SEASON

accounts for all the bodies that are now turning up with their faces peeled away, peculiar amputations and patches of skin removed. Could this homicidal anatomist somehow be the man who murdered and mutilated the Bedlam victim, stole his identity and is now keeping body snatchers like the evil Sawney busy? Hyde, an experienced army surgeon, could be responsible, but tracking him won’t be easy for Hawkwood, who will have to fend off cutthroat attacks, rapier thrusts, scruffy whores, fetid grog, and the offal in London’s streets and sewers before finding a secret operating theater where two surgeons—one in pursuit of scientific knowledge and the other for more personal reasons—are transplanting organs into deceased bodies and trying to revive them with electrical shocks.

Part fiction, part fact and all unsuitable for the faint of heart. McGee (Hawkwood, 2012) provides so many scurrilous grave robbers and medical atrocities that gentle readers may want to keep a perfumed hankie handy.

Miller, Maryann Five Star (280 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 14, 2012 978-1-4328-2598-0

Dallas detectives Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson (Open Season, 2011, etc.) return to confront a case almost as gnarly as their relationship.

Newly assigned to each other, the women just don’t feel as comfortable as partners should. It isn’t that they have any reason for serious distrust. Yes, Sarah’s white and Angel’s black, but in the past, neither has been much troubled by racial bias. Perhaps it’s their approaches to the job: Sarah’s is more instinctive, more by the gut; Angel’s is more by the book, more unsettled by what she views as Sarah’s hippy-dippy style, as if it could plunge her into situations beyond the scope of her training. When a young woman is strangled, nothing about her suggests a connection to the sleazy motel in which she’s found, and once she’s identified, her actual connections start the Dallas PD hopping. These extend to a quirky, exclusive Dallas businessman’s club and a private school with some offbeat operating principles of its own.

The Tracy Clemment murder turns out to be the kind of highprofile case that sends police brass in a frantic search for people to blame and corners to hide in if the investigation goes sour.

Through it all, Kingsly and Johnson remain remarkably steady.

But then just when it seems that they really might be cut out to be partners, they come to a bump in the road that paves the way for the next series entry.

Deftly plotted and paced. Although it’s certainly possible to grow impatient with the protagonists’ unwarranted impatience toward each other, they’re appealing enough to keep the pages turning.

DEADLY ROW TO HOE

McRae, Cricket Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (264 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Nov. 8, 2012 978-0-7387-3308-1 Murder and vegetables—what more could you ask?

Sophie Mae Reynolds and her bridegroom, police detective Barr Ambrose, are living upstairs in her best friend Meghan Bly’s house, where Sophie Mae makes handcrafted soap in the basement. Both are delighted to be helping out at a community-supported farm until Meghan discovers a body in the compost pile. The police learn that the unidentified young woman was stunned, probably by a shovel, and buried alive in the compost. Farm owners Tom and Allie Turner, Allie’s sister Hallie, and their apprentice, Nate Snow, all deny any knowledge of the crime. But Sophie Mae, who seems to discover more than her share of dead bodies (Something Borrowed, Something Bleu, 2010, etc.), resolves to identify the dead woman. She enlists the help of a clay artist specializing in masks to enhance a police photo to a more lifelike state. The new photo, careful questioning and time spent on the Internet pay off when the victim is identified as ornithologist Darla Klick. As it turns out, the pregnant Darla had ties to a commune the farm family and Nate had lived on years before. Sophie Mae’s nosiness may help to find a killer if it doesn’t get her killed.

McRae, whose home-crafting mysteries always offer tips in mastering some new area of domestic expertise, spices her juicy mystery with some intriguing veggie lore.

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HAND FOR A HAND

Muir, T. Frank Soho Crime (336 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-61695-181-8

DCI Andy Gilchrist of the Fife Constabulary’s Crime Management Department is targeted for revenge.

When the first body part and a note screaming “Murder” appears by the 17th green on St. Andrews’ Old Course, DCI Andy Gilchrist becomes the lead investigator. He is appalled to learn that Ronnie Watts, whom he beat almost to death for seducing his teenage daughter, Maureen, years back, has also been assigned to the case. When more of the victim is discovered on the 16th fairway, Gilchrist has a horrifying suspicion whom the body parts belong to: his sculptor son Jack’s girlfriend, Chloe. This time there’s a note proclaiming “Massacre.” By the time the next body part, branded with the word |

NO REGRETS, NO REMORSE

“Bludgeon,” is discovered, Gilchrist knows he’s being personally engaged by the dismemberer, a fact borne out when his daughter goes missing. Stopovers at the pub, nightmares and waking feelings of helplessness almost defeat him, but with collegial and erotic assists from DS Nancy “Nance” Wilson, Gilchrist begins to make sense of the ties among Chloe and Maureen, the men in their lives and the vendetta set in motion by an incarcerated psychosadist named Bully who may be released in two years. As Chloe’s decapitated head is tossed in a car boot along with the much-debased Maureen, Gilchrist scrambles to decipher meanings hidden in Burns’ poems by the main villain. The trail leads him and Nance to the Auld Aisle Cemetery in time to find a casket filled with drug loot—and perhaps in time to save his daughter and confront Ronnie once more.

Muir’s second engagement for the divorced Gilchrist (Eye for an Eye, 2008) rests several rungs down from Rankin and Harvey but is still fairly high up on the Scottish police procedural scale. (Agent: Al Zuckerman)

Sharp, R.F. Poisoned Pen (226 pp.) $24.95 | paper $14.95 | Lg. Prt. $22.95 Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-4642-0041-0 978-1-4642-0043-4 paperback 978-1-4642-0042-7 Lg. Prt. A West Palm Beach attorney who quit practicing to follow his star as a sculptor finds that assorted lawbreakers and officers of the court are following him as well.

In a normal week, Sydney Simone would spend her time posing nude for Oscar Leopold, managing the Rose Madder Gallery, and executing some unworthy victim or two to provide cash for HumanPestControl.com, the freelance assassination bureau Oscar has no idea she runs. But the week that Big Jack Gamble loses his boat and his life to an explosion is anything but normal. Roy Flagler, Oscar’s friend from law school, implores Oscar to take his case when his affair with Big Jack’s wife, Lucy, gets him arrested. Oscar’s success in linking Big Jack to two other Florida attorneys whose practice also specializes in defending insurance companies brings him to the unwelcome attention of Robert Jerome Walters, one of the two (the other one, Carl Seacomb, is scheduled for an early exit). Oscar’s professional rivalry with his ex-lover, assistant state’s attorney Sheila Katz, assumes a new edge when his defense of Sydney from a gang of street thugs leads to his own arrest. And Sydney develops problems outside her own practice: Walters’ son Rico announces that he’s not satisfied that the man he hired Sydney to kill died before she could put him on the spot, so now she’ll have to kill somebody else of Rico’s choice. Complications ensue.

This high-spirited debut novel from attorney/sculptor Sharp never does tie up all its loose ends. Blame Oscar, who’s both woollier and less interesting than Sydney, a heroine who deserves a starring role next time out.

BENEATH THE ABBEY WALL

Scott, A.D. Atria (352 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-4516-6577-2

A staff ’s attempts to bring the Highland Gazette up to modern standards are derailed by the death of one of their own.

Glaswegian editor McAllister is shocked when the dead body of Mrs. Smart, his capable office manager, is found near a local church. He’s even more shocked when Don McLeod, his deputy editor, goes on a binge upon hearing the news and then is arrested for her murder. With two of his staff gone, McAllister, hard-pressed to turn out a paper up to his standards, welcomes some part-time help from Neil Stewart. Neil is a Canadian college professor, born in Scotland, who’s been looking for answers about his birth ever since his mother died and left him a note saying that she was not his real mother. Reporter Joanne Ross falls for the charming Canadian, to the dismay of McAllister, who’s in love with her.

Mrs. Smart’s abusive spouse is furious at the news that he gets only the house the couple has been living in; her will leaves her estate in Sutherland to Don and all her jewelry to Jenny McPhee, doyenne of a family of tinkers. In order to find other suspects, Don’s friends must dig into a difficult past that, like an onion, reveals layer upon layer of secrets and lies Don and others want to keep concealed.

The third installment in this fine character-driven series, set in the Highlands of 1957 (A Double Death on the Black Isle, 2011, etc.), expertly evokes an area struggling with a painful past as it seeks a better future.

LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER

Spencer, Sally Severn House (208 pp.) $28.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7278-8192-2

A strike vote pits miner against miner in the colliery town of Bellingsworth.

Old-timer Tommy Sanders, sick with black lung, thinks a strike is the only way the miners will get the pay and medical benefits they deserve. But his contemporary, Len Hopkins, insists that striking will only hurt the men in the mines. The morning after the two come to blows at the Miners’ Institute during a celebration of the town band’s winning the coveted Brough Cup, housekeeper Susan Danvers finds Hopkins in the outside lavatory, his skull shattered by a short-handled pickax. DCI Monika Paniatowski |

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“A lively tale of historical interest.” from blood lance

BLOOD LANCE

(Echoes of the Dead, 2011, etc.) has a hunch that the motive is local and personal. But her boss, Chief Constable George Baxter, knows that the Special Branch, led by shadowy agent Forsyth, is taking particular interest in the case. Monika’s investigation is plagued by distractions. First, her best friend, DI Colin Beresford, newly liberated from 30 years of virginity and feeling his oats, takes every opportunity to criticize his boss’ handling of the case. Then, her daughter, Louisa, is mysteriously abducted from a schoolmate’s party, only to be returned a few hours later. As Beresford pursues one false lead after another, Monika struggles to find a solution that puts all the pieces, personal and political, in their proper place.

Just as the Special Branch thwarts Monika, politics and espionage undermine Spencer’s usually solid mixture of police procedure and detection.

Westerson, Jeri Minotaur (320 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-1-250-00018-7 Despite being disgraced and living by his wits, a former knight cannot forget his vows.

Crispin Guest, aka the Tracker, is wearily returning home when he sees someone falling from the London Bridge.

His plunge into the icy waters is to no avail, for the man was dead before he hit the water. Although many claim that the armorer was a suicide, Guest thinks otherwise and, with help from his loyal servant and assistant, Jack, is soon embroiled in the man’s dubious affairs. The beautiful Anabel Coterel claims to have been the armourer’s betrothed. Though at first she too says his death was suicide, she changes her mind and begs Guest to help her and her father, an often-inebriated tailor, recover their stolen rent money before they’re turned out of their house.

A visit from Sir Thomas Saunfayl drags Guest deeper into a dangerous situation. Saunfayl, a friend from Guest’s former chivalric life, is accused of deserting and will die unless he can prevail in a jousting competition. Desperate to ensure his victory, he has paid a fortune to procure the Spear of Longinus, a religious relic he believes will give him that power—a relic apparently stolen from the armorer, who was acting as a go-between. When Geoffrey Chaucer, another friend from the past, arrives on the scene searching for the mysterious spear and Guest is harassed by knights loyal to the earl of Suffolk, King Richard’s chancellor, Guest wonders if his search for the relic and the murderer will be his last case.

Guest’s fifth adventure (Troubled Bones, 2011, etc.) again provides a lively tale of historical interest smoothly combined with a worthy mystery. (Agent: Joshua Bilmes)

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

Tallis, Frank Random House (384 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-8129-8334-0

When DI Oskar Rheinhardt investigates the suspicious death of an opera diva in early-20th-century Vienna, he finds a nest of vipers and a closet full of skeletons.

Tensions simmer at an elegant gathering that includes the Emperor Franz Josef, Prince Rudolph Liechtenstein, Mayor Lueger and members of the Court Opera, led by Gustav Mahler. The soprano Arianne Amsel attracts many admirers, and the mayor’s apparent health is a disappointment to the emperor and his retinue. Not long after, a famed soprano, not Amsel, is found dead under suspicious circumstances. The victim, Ida Rosenkrantz, who recently supplanted a bitter Amsel as the opera’s foremost soprano, ingested a deadly quantity of laudanum, leading to a possible verdict of suicide. But she also has a cracked rib and, outside of some recent idiosyncratic behavior, no apparent reason to kill herself. Rheinhardt consults his friend, the progressive Viennese psychoanalyst and Freud-protégé Max Liebermann, and even takes him along when he questions witnesses. When not working the case, the duo enjoys making music together. Mahler confirms the jealousy of other singers at Rosenkrantz’s success, which becomes a motif of the investigation, confirmed by her dresser, Felix, and by Amsel herself. A gardener links the victim to the mayor, and the reader is privy to connections with the prince and the emperor as well. But the biggest early development is the discovery that Rosenkrantz may have secretly had an abortion.

Liebermann and Rheinhardt’s sixth collaboration (Vienna Twilight, 2011, etc.) again paints an intricately detailed portrait of the city in its time as well as a satisfyingly layered murder puzzle.

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LOVED HONOR MORE

Wildwind, Sharon Five Star (394 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 14, 2012 978-1-4328-2619-2

The fall of Saigon brings the war home to North Carolina for several Vietnam vets and their friends.

Nurse Elizabeth Pepperhawk thinks she’s left Vietnam behind. But when a woman arrives on her doorstep with a baby and the field diary of West Point graduate Col. Darby Baxter, the memories come rushing back. Miss Fillmore, a State Department employee rescued from the embassy in Saigon, claims that a dying Darcy asked her to bring the baby and diary to Pepper and demands $3,000. Pepper scrapes up the money, all right, but is crushed to think that the baby must be Darcy’s and that the man she loves is not what she thought. When Miss |

Fillmore is found dead in the clinic where Pepper works, her housemates, police officer Avivah Rosen and her boyfriend, journalist Saul Eisenberg, and Vietnam vet Benny Kirkpatrick all get involved. At length, Darby turns up badly wounded, only to become a suspect, along with a pilot for the CIA’s Air America who suddenly arrives in town. Since Darcy was supposed to be in Japan and the army has reported him killed in a training accident, what was he doing in Vietnam? Pepper is attacked for the field diary, someone tries to steal the baby and Pepper discovers a large Vietnamese community nearby that she never knew about. Although Avivah gets on the case while Pepper struggles with her damaged relationship, the answers may lie far away in another country.

The last installment in the adventures of Elizabeth and Avivah (Missing, Presumed Wed, 2009, etc.) will bring back disturbing memories for readers of a certain age. For others, the complex mystery provides an insider’s look at a difficult time in American history.

science fiction and fantasy LUCK OF THE DRAW

Anthony, Piers Forge (352 pp.) $25.99 | Dec. 24, 2012 978-0-7653-3135-9

Anthony (Well-Tempered Clavicle, 2011, etc.) serves up the 36th entry in his punpacked Xanth fantasy series.

The series, set in the fictional realm of Xanth, a place full of magic, crude humor and wordplay, has had an admirable longevity; its first installment, A Spell for Chameleon, was published some 35 years ago. This time around, Bryce, a sickly 80-year-old widower, is magically transported to Xanth, where he is given the body of a 21-year-old and the power to see briefly into the future. He is told by Princess Dawn that Demons have made a bet involving him, and as a result, Bryce must compete with other suitors for the hand of Princess Harmony, a teenage girl whom he is compelled by magic to desire. Among those that assist him in his dangerous quest are a talking German short-haired pointer dog named Rachel and a 19-year-old young woman named Mindy. He comes to discover that in Xanth, all is not what it seems. The novel stands alone quite well and doesn’t require readers to be experts in the Xanth mythos to understand the basic story. However, newcomers should be warned that Anthony’s work is not for everyone. A very high tolerance for puns and bad jokes is required; at one point, for example, the characters encounter the Pie Rats of the Carry Bean. Some |

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readers may also find the overall plotline—an old man in a young man’s body forced to pursue a 16-year-old girl—rather questionable, as well as the constant mentions of women’s panties. On top of it all, Anthony’s prose, and especially his dialogue, can be clunky and artless at times. That said, he does have his devoted fans, and he thanks a few of them personally, in the closing Author’s Note, for puns and ideas that they submitted.

A fantasy that will mainly satisfy dedicated Xanth aficionados. (Agent: Joel Gottler)

BOWL OF HEAVEN

Benford, Gregory; Niven, Larry Tor (416 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-7653-2841-0 The first full-length collaboration from Niven (Fate of Worlds, 2012, etc.) and Benford (The Sunborn, 2005, etc.), featuring a science-fiction trope, the Big Dumb Object—or, as the authors distinguish it, a Big Smart Object since it’s dynamically stable, as opposed to passively stable like Niven’s BDO, Ringworld.

A sublight-speed starship heading for a habitable planet encounters an astonishingly vast structure: a bowl-shaped construct like a Dyson hemisphere, with a habitable interior surface larger in area than millions of Earths. Even more amazing, this Bowl is being steered towards the same destination as the starship, using an entire star as its engine! The starship needs supplies, so a landing party goes down to investigate. While attempting to gain ingress, the explorers become separated.

One group, led by biologist Beth Marble, is captured by the structure’s alien controllers, taught to communicate and interrogated. The other group, under Beth’s partner, biologist Cliff Kammash, escapes into the Bowl’s habitable interior, only to be pursued relentlessly by birdlike aliens. We learn from Memor, the chief alien investigator, that the Bowl has been wandering the galaxy for millions of years, capturing and enslaving other intelligent species and incorporating them into the Bowl’s complex ecology—and their debate soon narrows into whether to domesticate the humans or simply exterminate them. There’s plenty of gosh-wow value in the exploration of the object itself, while the plot develops along conventional lines. Unfortunately, the humans lack personalities, their interactions remain soapoperatic, and the quality of the writing reflects this. The aliens come across as too dimwitted and sluggish for the sophisticated technology they evidently control, although this may be intentional: A sequel, Shipstar, is promised.

BDO or BSO, there’s nothing wrong with the hardware; it’s the wetware that’s disappointingly deficient.

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THE RISE OF RANSOM CITY

woman, Najya, arrives, claiming that she was kidnapped by sorcerers, drugged and subjected to a terrifying magic ritual. Dabir suspects she has been deliberately contaminated by an ancient spirit somehow connected to the unnatural weather. When one of Najya’s pursuers shows up, Asim fights him off only with great difficulty: Their antagonists, it seems, are a cabal of sorcerers out of ancient legend, the Sebitti, immortal and with terrible powers. The spirit that threatens to consume Najya urges her to locate a set of hidden ancient magical weapons, the bones of the title, that the Sebitti need to do—something. To fight the Sebitti, Asim and Dabir must form an alliance with Lydia, a powerful and treacherous Greek sorcerer with whom they clashed in the previous adventure. To confuse matters even more, the Sebitti are not united in their desires, and other powers exist that oppose them, or some of them. Jones works it all out to his own satisfaction at least, but probably not that of his readers, who likely will remain uncertain about who’s who and what any of them really want. Still, characters and backdrop are agreeably developed with plenty of magical battles thrown in.

Shortcomings and all, a thumbs-up for series fans.

(Agent: Bob Mecoy)

Gilman, Felix Tor (368 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-7653-2940-0

Sequel to The Half-Made World (2010), a sort of magic/steampunk Wild West yarn wherein two powers struggle for dominance: One, the Line, builds heavy industry while enslaving the population, while the Gun cultivates terror, violence and robbery.

The Line is ruled by Engines, cold, calculating, immortal cybernetic machines, while the Gun’s agents are controlled by immortal demon Guns. Only the West is dotted with settlements of free people and the mysterious, magic-powered aboriginal Folk. Previously, psychologist Liv Alverhuysen and a renegade Gun agent, John Creedmoor, traveled into the remote West in order to study those driven insane by Gun and Line— and, just possibly, find a clue to how they might be defeated.

Here, the pair cross paths only briefly with the protagonist, first-person narrator Harry Ransom, part snake-oil salesman, part mad inventor and clearly inspired by Mark Twain’s writings.

Harry has invented a sort of perpetual motion machine based on the “Process” that, he hopes, once perfected, will provide unlimited light and power for the free peoples. As Alverhuysen and Creedmoor continue their search for a weapon that can kill immortals, Harry drifts from town to town, trying to accumulate funds and perfect his Apparatus. Readers hoping for a continuation of the previous book will be disappointed: Harry’s picaresque adventures firmly occupy center stage and, while not quite as fascinating as Gilman evidently hoped, he’s still an intriguing character. What’s more troubling is the backdrop: It’s possible, for example, that the Engines were invented by humans in the distant past, which puts a dent in the Wild-West scenario, while it’s hard to imagine how any of the economies described here would actually function.

Thought-provoking, but lacking rigor in the construction. (Agent: Howard Morhaim)

THE CASSANDRA PROJECT

McDevitt, Jack; Resnick, Mike Ace/Berkley (400 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-937008-71-0 This first collaboration from McDevitt (Firebird, 2011, etc.) and Resnick (The Doctor and the Kid, 2011, etc.), developed from a 2010 story by McDevitt (spoiler alert: don’t read the story first), takes the form of a conspiracy involving the moon landings. And no, Stanley Kubrick didn’t fake them.

By 2019, the U.S. economy is still grinding along the fringes of recession. Jerry Culpepper, NASA’s public affairs director, loves his job and still believes in its mission, even though the only foreseeable future is one of continuing slow decline. But then a routine release of background material from the late 1960s turns up an oddity. Before Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, there were two dress-rehearsal moon shots, both of which orbited the moon but did not land. Yet, a recording of a chat between Houston and Sydney Myshko, captain of the first of the test missions, shows Myshko apparently preparing to descend! And Aaron Walker, on the mission after Myshko, wrote in his diary that he landed on the moon. Both men are now dead and cannot be questioned. But was there a coverup?

Of what, and for what possible reason? Multibillionaire entrepreneur Morgan “Bucky” Blackstone sees a chance to goose the complacent Washington establishment and, not coincidentally, whip up enthusiasm for his own, strictly private enterprise, planned moon landings. As other evidence, suggestive yet inconclusive, trickles in, Jerry tries to keep a lid on things. Meanwhile, POTUS George Cunningham, an essentially decent man with a

THE BONES OF THE OLD ONES

Jones, Howard Andrew Dunne/St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $25.99 | Dec. 11, 2012 978-0-312-64675-2

Sequel to Jones’ sword-and-sorcery debut, The Desert of Souls (2011), set in the civilized, tolerant Middle East of the 8th-century caliphate.

First-person narrator Capt. Asim and learned scholar Dabir, our demonfighting protagonists, are living quietly in Mosul as an unprecedentedly severe winter, with frigid temperatures and deep snows, grips the land. Then a beautiful and frightened young 2216

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“Astonishing stuff that leaves readers with plenty of work to do.” from the hermetic millennia

strong interest in NASA but hampered by intractable budgetary constraints, finds himself in a bind: If there was a conspiracy and he didn’t know, he’s out of touch and an idiotic dupe; if he did know, he’s a liar and part of the coverup. Against the solid and affectionately rendered NASA backdrop, the authors expertly crank up the tension and maintain it throughout via a suite of thoroughly believable characters.

A top-notch, edge-of-the-seat thriller in which there are no villains, only mysteries.

THE INEXPLICABLES

Priest, Cherie Tor (368 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-7653-2947-9 Another in Priest’s Clockwork Century series (Ganymede, 2011, etc.), set in a late-Victorian alternate America where the Civil War never ended, whose chief ingredients are steampunk, supernatural and pulp Western.

Orphan Rector Sherman has reached his 18th birthday and so must leave the orphanage. He isn’t particularly sad to go, having made a living as a dealer in the drug “sap.” Unfortunately, he’s addicted to the drug himself and haunted by the ghost of Zeke Wilkes, whom he helped sneak into the walled-off city of Seattle and who almost certainly is dead. To lay the ghost, Rector must enter Seattle himself—a fearsome undertaking, since the city is full of a corrosive yellow gas (the raw material from which sap is derived) and swarming with zombies, or “rotters.” Once inside, Rector runs into the Doornails, a mixedrace group who are trying to make the city livable, and learns of another faction led by gangster and drug dealer Yaozu. He’s chased by a gigantic apelike creature, rarely glimpsed, that the locals refer to as an “inexplicable.” And he makes a couple of friends: puppylike Zeke, who’s neither dead nor resentful, and young Chinese know-it-all Houjin, who see to it that he acquires the necessary gas mask and gloves for protection against the gas.

Less happily, he’s summoned by Yaozu, who knows of Rector and his previous business. Yaozu is concerned that the rotters are disappearing, and if the rotters can get out, others—creatures, people—can get in, and Yaozu has no wish to fight off a succession of gang lords coming up from California. This gritty, intensely realized setting isn’t backed up by a similarly robust plot, and readers not partial to mouthy teenagers will find few other characters with any depth.

Classification: potboiler. Substance: adequate. (Agent: Jennifer Jackson)

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SILHOUETTE

Swavely, Dave Dunne/St. Martin’s (272 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-250-00149-8 West coast post-disaster yarn from first-time novelist Swavely.

Following a devastating earthquake, San Francisco’s police chief, Saul Rabin, formed a private corporation called the Bay Area Security Service and became the destroyed region’s de facto ruler. The rest of the U.S. has its own troubles and is happy for Rabin to rule with an iron fist and steer an independent course. The privileged few, including Rabin’s lieutenants, Darien Anthony, first-person narrator Michael Ares and Saul’s son, Paul, live in remote, heavily securitized enclaves. The only opposition is provided by ex-employee Harold Harris and his gadfly followers. Then, Paul tells Michael that Darien has been murdered; worse, in the car when the bomb exploded was Michael’s daughter. Lynn, Michael’s wife, falls apart as Michael leads the investigation, which goes nowhere. Then, Paul reveals that the murderer was—Michael! According to Paul, Saul had a microchip implanted in Michael’s head, which allows Saul to take control, which explains why Michael has no memory of the incident. But what could Saul’s motive be? Maybe it has something to do with the anti-gravity technology BASS has developed, by which means Saul is about to become a power player on the world stage. Unfortunately, Swavely offers few clues as to how this post-quake scenario developed—routine exposition in the middle of an action sequence doesn’t cut it—and no idea how the high-tech toys might work. For the rest, all the pieces link up, though the general affect is flat, and less patient readers might find themselves muttering, dude, loosen up!

Overly cautious; needs juice.

THE HERMETIC MILLENNIA

Wright, John C. Tor (400 pp.) $25.99 | Dec. 24, 2012 978-0-7653-2928-8

Second installment of Wright’s ferociously dense and convoluted far-future space opera involving hyperintelligence, aliens and artificial evolution (Count to a Trillion, 2011). Warning up front: Read the first book first.

Thanks to the discovery of an alien storehouse of knowledge and source of energy, former Texas gunslinger Menelaus Montrose transformed himself into a supergenius. Unfortunately, so did his colleagues who, led by Zimen “Blackie” Del Azarchel, desire only to rule the Earth. Menelaus tried but failed to prevent them. However, aliens known as the

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Domination of Hyades regard themselves as Earth’s overlords, and in 8,000 years, they will arrive to take ownership. Blackie and company, then, intend to force the development of a suitably advanced yet compliantly slave-worthy population.

Menelaus’ wife, meanwhile, is heading at near-light speed for a remote globular star cluster in order to confront the Hyades’ bosses’ bosses. She will, of course, arrive back at Earth 50,000 years too late to prevent the Hyades’ occupation, so somehow Menelaus must prevent the slavers from exterminating humanity until she arrives. Menelaus arranges to enter cryonic suspension, with instructions to wake him periodically so he can gauge what Blackie and his co-conspirators have been up to and, hopefully, counteract them. When he wakes, however, Menelaus discovers that the tombs where he and others were preserved have been ripped open and plundered by Blackie’s Blue Men minions—merely the latest example of Blackie’s efforts to create ideal subjects for the Hyades. So: An impressive torrent of information, factual, extrapolative and speculative, explicated via a series of dazzlingly erudite conversations that build weird post-humans into recognizable characters.

Oh, and a plot that goes nowhere at all.

Astonishing stuff that leaves readers with plenty of work to do. (Agent: Jack Byrne)

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nonfiction These titles earned the Kirkus Star: IRON CURTAIN by Anne Applebaum..........................................p. 2220 38 NOOSES by Scott W. Berg...................................................... p. 2223 THE ANTIDOTE by Oliver Burkeman.........................................p. 2224 THE CARBON CRUNCH by Dieter Helm................................... p. 2235 HELLO, GORGEOUS by William J. Mann..................................p. 2243 THIS LIVING HAND by Edmund Morris................................... p. 2244 1775 by Kevin Phillips..................................................................p. 2247 THE AMISTAD REBELLION by Marcus Rediker........................p. 2248 WIND WIZARD by Siobhan Roberts........................................... p. 2249 LOST AT SEA by Jon Ronson........................................................ p. 2250 MENACHEM BEGIN by Avi Shilon............................................. p. 2251 THE INJUSTICE SYSTEM by Clive Stafford Smith.................... p. 2252 NATURE WARS by Jim Sterba.................................................... p. 2253

LOST AT SEA: The Jon Ronson Mysteries

Ronson, Jon Riverhead (400 pp.) $26.95 Nov. 27, 2012 978-1-59463-137-5

A HISTORY OF OPERA

Abbate, Carolyn; Parker, Roger Norton (576 pp.) $39.95 | Nov. 26, 2012 978-0-393-05721-8

An account of opera’s evolution stressing performance practices rather than theoretical mandates.

Abbate and Parker (Music/Kings College London) begin by noting the central divide in opera between the words and the music. “The story, the narrative element, can often be ludicrous; but it’s also essential,” they write, a comment characteristic of their nuanced, all-embracing approach.

The authors have no use for the attitude promulgated by Wagner and his disciples, that an individual opera is a sacred work to be approached with reverence. They complicate the standard view that opera was born circa 1600 from the desire of Renaissance Italians to recreate Greek drama, pointing to various less-elevated national theatrical traditions as important contributors to the art form. While their discussions of such game-changing artists as Monteverdi, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi and Wagner are unfailingly intelligent, they are even better on such neglected but crucial genres as opera seria, grand opera and opéra comique; the out-of-fashion Parisian opera scene in particular, gets its due. The authors occasionally seem unduly preoccupied with the undoubted fact that there has been a steep decline in the creation of new operas, even as recording technology and publicity tactics have expanded contemporary audiences for “opera’s museum culture.” Readers will sense that they prefer the times when opera was part of a living (albeit elite) culture, when people talked, flirted and wandered the auditorium during performances. Nonetheless, their coverage of every period in opera’s history is scrupulous and provocative.

Their insights are frequently both shrewd and stimulating: for instance, the distinction they draw between “plot-character” and “voice-character,” a divide that allows a heroine dying of tuberculosis to sing loudly enough to match the orchestra, but that also, more importantly, transforms stick figures moving along with the action into psychologically complex personalities defined in song. Such paradoxes are the lifeblood of opera, and the authors embrace them with gusto.

Formidably knowledgeable and bracingly opinionated.

(24 pages of illustrations, including 4-color)

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2219

“A dark but hopeful chronicle that shows how even humanity’s worst can fracture and fall.” from iron curtain

PARADOX The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics al-Khalili, Jim Broadway (336 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Oct. 23, 2012 978-0-307-98679-5

A British physicist looks at some of the enigmatic propositions created by his colleagues over the ages.

Al-Khalili (Quantum Physics/Univ. of Surrey; The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance, 2011, etc.) begins with a few “warm-ups” including “The Game Show Paradox,” in which a contestant considers three doors, one of which conceals a prize. After the contestant chooses one, the host then opens another, which proves not to be the winner, and asks the contestant if she would like to change her choice. In defiance of common sense, it is advantageous to do so; Al-Khalili summarizes the probabilities behind the puzzle. Some of the greatest logical puzzles were the work of the Greek philosopher Zeno, who seemed to prove that motion is impossible. His demonstration seemed annoyingly irrefutable until the development of mathematical tools, such as calculus, for describing change over time.

Olbers’ Paradox, on the other hand, revealed deep truths about the universe by asking why the sky is dark at night. Maxwell’s Demon, an imaginary creature that can control individual molecules to overthrow entropy, raises similarly deep issues of fundamental physics. Possibly the most familiar paradox of quantum theory is Schrodinger’s Cat, whose life and death depends on the decay of a radioactive atom in a given stretch of time. Fermi’s Paradox is another that raises questions about the larger universe: If technologically advanced civilizations are common in the universe, why haven’t they visited us? Al-Khalili gives detailed answers to each of these, plus several that grow out of Einstein’s theory of relativity and the possibility of time travel. He ends with a list of unsolved problems of science and a look at the recent question about whether neutrinos have been found to travel faster than light.

An often-entertaining introduction to basic principles of science and philosophy.

IRON CURTAIN The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956

Applebaum, Anne Doubleday (560 pp.) $35.00 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-385-51569-6

A Pulitzer Prize–winning author returns with the story of those dark decades in Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union slammed the prison doors on people, cultures and countries.

2220 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

Realizing she could not tell the whole story in one volume, Washington Post and Slate columnist Applebaum (Gulag: A History, 2003, etc.) focuses on Poland, East Germany and Hungary and shows how their stories were representative. She begins as World War II was ending. The Russians were plowing through Eastern Europe on their way to Berlin. While many of the Allies were thinking of home, the Soviets had grander and grimmer ideas. Applebaum shows how the communists gained political control of individual countries (they were sometimes surprised in “elections” how unpopular they were), then charts how—in the service of their iron ideology—they systematically destroyed economies, organizations, the arts, education, the press, the judiciary, the church, the entertainment industries and every other social institution. Internment camps and prisons became the true growth industries. Applebaum also explores the tactics employed to keep people in line: fear and intimidation, of course, but also a massive propaganda industry that sought to convince everyone that things were better than they were, but not nearly as good as they would be in five years or so. They invested much hope in education, believing they could indoctrinate an entire generation. It didn’t work. Periodically, the author chronicles what was happening in the West (the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift). Beginning with the death of Stalin, Applebaum shows how and why things slowly began to change. The emerging youth culture, the resurgence of religious belief, the rise of a new generation of writers and artists— these were among the factors that energized the 1956 uprisings, which, of course, the Soviets temporarily crushed.

A dark but hopeful chronicle that shows how even humanity’s worst can fracture and fall.

VICTORIAN BLOOMSBURY

Ashton, Rosemary Yale Univ. (400 pp.) $40.00 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-300-15447-4

A portrait of London’s famous intellectual neighborhood before Virginia Woolf and her friends moved in.

“It was in the nineteenth century that [Bloomsbury] acquired its distinctive, important, and above all progressive role in the life of both London and the nation,” writes Ashton (English Language and Literature/University College London; 142 Strand: A Radical Address in Victorian London, 2006, etc.), a good point that she makes as repetitiously as she does every other point in this informative but dull text. Although the British Museum had been located in Bloomsbury since it opened in 1759, the story of Victorian Bloomsbury begins in the 1820s with the construction of a grand new building for the museum and with the establishment of the University of London, designed to offer higher education at prices more affordable than those of Oxford and Cambridge and without the religious test that prevented non-Anglicans from attending Oxbridge. Now known as University College London, the school was attacked

from the start as a hotbed of godless radicalism. Bloomsbury was indeed an important center for Victorian liberalism, home to institutions designed to educate women, members of the working class and young children, as well as to nonconformist religious institutions and one of the city’s first settlement houses. The author’s claim that “from the eighteenth century onwards Bloomsbury was central to medical progress” seems more dubious, something of an excuse to include a history of the University College Hospital. Yes, the hospital was the site of the first use of anesthesia in Europe, but there is more here about the ins and outs of its personnel than seems necessary.

Victorian Bloomsbury is a mildly specious catchall that muddies the particulars of the book one senses Ashton really wanted to write: a history of University College London.

Plenty of good material, but this unfocused text will be of interest mainly to scholars.

SAUL STEINBERG A Biography

Bair, Deirdre Talese/Doubleday (752 pp.) $40.00 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-0-385-52448-3

National Book Award winner Bair (Calling It Quits: Late-Life Divorce and Starting Over, 2007, etc.) exhaustively explores everything related to Steinberg.

It is well into the book before the author digs deeply into the thoughts behind his art. Born in Romania and educated in Milan, Steinberg was an extremely private man who was terrified of exposing himself by discussing his work, but he had an extremely active social life and a desperate need to seduce any woman who took his fancy. His wife, the artist Hedda Sterne, as well as his lovers, let him get away with it. Perhaps his generosity assuaged their furor. Like so many artists of that age, he seemed to be able to escape to rest his mind for large parts of the year. Bair chronicles all of Steinberg’s trips, noting every flight, sailing, hotel, train and bus ride. His dealings with galleries are interesting; travel plans and his digestion are not. Steinberg produced a wide array of work, from cartoons, books, murals, stage sets, fabric designs and even greeting cards.

Call to mind View of the World from 9th Avenue, which appeared on the cover of the New Yorker in 1976, and you’ll see how his mind allowed him to lead us through his free-association world.

His works with “5” and “E” are masterpieces of wordless comedy, and his images were so intense that words were never needed.

Bair’s book, though overlong, will help readers understand the breadth of Steinberg’s talents.

Followers of the postwar art world will love this book but may be disappointed by the lack of examples of his work.

THROUGH THE WINDOW Seventeen Essays and a Short Story

Barnes, Julian Vintage (272 pp.) $15.95 paperback | Oct. 30, 2012 978-0-345-80550-8

The focus on books and literature makes this more cohesive than the usual collection of journalistic miscellany.

Barnes deserves a breather after hitting his novelistic peak with the Man Booker Prize–winning The Sense of an Ending (2011), preceded by a best-selling meditation on mortality (Nothing to Be Frightened Of, 2008). The preface to these critical pieces on individual authors or works (plus one short story, “Homage to Hemingway”) should strike a responsive chord in anyone who loves books. As Barnes writes, “I have lived in books, for books, by and with books; in recent years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to live from books.” He then makes a series of deep, loving plunges into the world of literature, into posthumous celebrations of Penelope Fitzgerald (who had been, in his estimation, “the best living English novelist”) and John Updike (whose Rabbit Quartet, he writes, constitutes “the greatest post-war American novel”). Many of the essays concern those who Barnes thinks should be better known, or at least more often read, including three pieces on Ford Madox Ford that explore “his past and continuing neglect” and one on the “marginal” poet Arthur Hugh Clough. Barnes’ celebration of the “virtually unknown” 17th-century French author NicolasSébastien Roch de Chamfort ranks with the most interesting here, as does his assessment of the notorious Michel Houellebecq: “There are certain books—sardonic and acutely pessimistic—which systematically affront all our current habits of living, and treat our presumptions of mind as the delusions of the cretinous.”

Not every piece will connect with every reader, but Barnes is a fine literary companion.

PRAY THE GAY AWAY The Extraordinary Lives of Bible Belt Gays Barton, Bernadette New York Univ. (304 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-8147-8637-6

Barton (Sociology and Women’s Studies/Morehead State Univ.; Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers, 2006) examines the experiences of gay people living in the Bible Belt.

The author’s tales of gay life in this area of the country, where anti-gay evangelical Protestantism holds sway, range from the harrowing to the mundane. This is not a book about random anti-gay violence; the majority of Barton’s subjects | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2221

were treated more brutally by their own families than by strangers. The author opens by stating that although she has “lived in Kentucky for 20 years, 17 of these in lesbian relationships,” she “had not personally experienced…much homophobia until a spring day in 2003” when, after she told someone that she was a lesbian, he characterized homosexuality as an “abomination.”

It is unclear what conclusions readers are meant to draw from this episode, which sounds far less traumatic than much of what her subjects experienced at the hands of their own parents. One thing is clear: Being gay is difficult anywhere, and it’s especially difficult in a place dominated by conservative Christian ideology. Barton’s subjects’ painful stories of rejection by their families and communities, as well as the earnest desire of most to reconcile their personal identities with the faith in which they were raised, are eloquent enough to arouse the sympathy of even avowed opponents of gay rights. The most compelling parts of the book are the lengthy quotes from Barton’s intelligent subjects. The author’s own voice is less commanding and too littered with academic jargon.

Engaging subject matter and sympathetic protagonists do not entirely compensate for Barton’s ponderous prose, but the book is still worthwhile reading for anyone interested in what it means to be gay in an overtly hostile environment.

ENCYCLOPEDIA PARANOIACA

Beard, Henry; Cerf, Christopher Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-1-4391-9955-8

From National Lampoon co-conspirators Beard (Golf: An Unofficial and Unauthorized History of the World’s Most Preposterous Sport, 2012, etc.) and Cerf (co-author: Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq: The Experts Speak, 2008, etc.), a whimsical collection of the sometimes-scary, sometimes-silly things that threaten our modern-day lives.

Considering such things as French fries and fracking as dangerous are no-brainers. But other entries in this compendium of assorted life-threatening perils seem downright ludicrous. The shock value of having fresh fruit and fish oil on the same list as skin cancer and radiation is undeniably high— until you read deeper and find that the “danger” of whole fruits is eating them to excess and flooding your system with sugar. The horrors of fish oil? Fish breath. Chewing gum is also on the list of things to fret. Why? Wrinkles around the lips.

As the late Gilda Radner once said, “It’s always something.”

Other entries, however, are genuinely shocking and fittingly disturbing—e.g., brown rice. Who’d have thought that the macrobiotic mainstay was so potentially devastating thanks to its nasty habit of absorbing arsenic? The dusty encyclopedic format is also problematic and feels a little awkward deep in the digital age, requiring readers to constantly cross-reference.

Beard and Cerf too often mute their many dire warnings, dour 2222 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

cautions and grim advisories with qualifying language. Much more effective are the brief discussions of lesser-understood topics like doom loops and portfolio diversification. Similarly, descriptions of the seething volcano that exists underneath Yellowstone National Park and the fast-approaching Asteroid 99942 Apophis hurtling toward the Earth are truly frightening and fascinating. The book works best as a leisurely joke book rather than a real research tool.

Amusing in short spurts—an entertaining way to pass the time in between worrying about the real issues in your life.

MARY WELLS The Tumultuous Life of Motown’s First Superstar Benjaminson, Peter Chicago Review (304 pp.) $26.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-56976-248-6

From journalist and Motown chronicler Benjaminson (The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard, 2009, etc.), a compelling, sympathetic biography of Motown’s first diva Mary Wells (1943–1992).

Before Diana Ross or any other Motown star, there was Wells. Discovered at age 17 by Berry Gordy, president of the then-fledgling Motown, in 1960, the young Detroit schoolgirl went on to create a number of crossover hits (appealing to both black and white audiences), including her signature song, “My Guy.” Wells would define the style (long gowns and glamour) for later female Motown artists and the sound (“a strong melody, a noticeable beat, and accessibility for all”) that would bring enormous success and wealth to Motown.

Yet, in a dispute over money, Wells left Motown, and while she spent the rest of her life trying to do so, she was never able to equal the success she had there. Trekking from one record company to another, she could never recreate the elusive magic of recording for Motown. “Nostalgia,” however, “kept her performing career alive,” and she performed “almost every other night, week after week,” becoming, for better or worse, “Queen of the Oldies.” Benjaminson ably captures the artistic milieu of early Motown, in which Wells’ art flourished. He also offers an unvarnished account of her tumultuous personal life: her numerous, sometimes disastrous, relations with a series of men, the drug and alcohol addictions that consumed her later in life, and her long battle to defeat the cancer that would take her life. While a flawed figure, Wells faced life’s hardships “by struggling and achieving until the very end.”

A moving tribute to an artist who should not be forgotten. (20 b/w photos. Author events in New York and Detroit)

“A captivating tale of an oft-overlooked, morally ambiguousmoment in American history.” from 38 nooses

LIFE IS A GIFT The Zen of Bennett

Bennett, Tony Harper/HarperCollins (272 pp.) $28.99 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-0-06-220706-7

The legendary master of the American songbook shares stories and lessons learned from a life in music.

As Bennett (The Good Life: The Autobiography of Tony Bennett, 1998) notes, Frank Sinatra called him “my favorite singer” on more than one occasion. The effect of this endorsement on Bennett’s career was, of course, enormous. From a generation of singers still inclined to refer to his work as “showbiz,” Bennett’s career has had a peerless longevity and has likely provided him with wisdom and anecdotes for two or three books of this nature. The stories are wide-ranging, calling on his relationships with the best-known jazz singers and musicians from the 20th century—stories of collaborations, disagreements and adventures. His passion for art, travel and learning also take the stage. Each chapter showcases what Bennett sees as the necessities for a successful life—e.g., respecting others, hard work, ignoring “trends,” and focusing on what you know and love. Bennett is also willing to call bologna by its name when he sees it, and he decries what he calls the “flattening out” of the music industry and of the tendency to prioritize all aspects of the business aside from the quality of the music. Some of the “Zen” suggestions at the close of each chapter fall flat—e.g., there’s nothing particularly useful in stating that the world will be a better place if everyone can learn to get along and appreciate each others’ differences.

There is, however, a great deal of wisdom in the suggestions when they stem directly from Bennett’s own richly lived life.

Like Bennett’s catalog of music—you may not fall in love with each individual story, but it’s hard to argue with the way it’s being told.

38 NOOSES Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End

Berg, Scott W. Pantheon (336 pp.) $27.95 | Dec. 4, 2012 978-0-307-37724-1 978-0-307-90739-4 e-book

An exploration of the violent downfall of Little Crow’s Dakota nation at the hands of American soldiers.

Washington Post contributor Berg (Writing and Literature/ George Mason Univ.; Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C., 2007) focuses on the rising escalation between the Dakota people and white settlers, a conflict that came to a head in the summer of 1862, when four

inebriated Native Americans carelessly murdered a few white settlers. While Dakota chief Little Crow did not condone the reckless behavior, he recognized that “the day of reckoning was bound to arrive no matter how accommodating and pliable he might be.” As expected, U.S. soldiers soon retaliated, though the battle had long been brewing, especially for the Dakotas, who were frustrated by the federal government’s continued failures to make good on its promised annuities to the natives.

With their credit lines running thin, the Dakota people fought for their survival, though insult was added to their injurious defeat when a military trial sentenced 300 Dakota warriors to death for their role in the battle. While President Lincoln intervened to lessen the number to 38, the mass hanging still earned the dubious honor of becoming the largest public execution in American history. Throughout the sweeping narrative, Berg skillfully weaves in various perspectives, including that of Sarah Wakefield, a woman held captive by the Dakotas, and Bishop Henry Whipple, a paternalistic advocate for the native people.

Yet Berg’s greater accomplishment is his ability to overlap the little-known Dakota War with its far better known counterpart, the American Civil War. The author’s juxtaposition offers readers a contextual framework that provides unique insight into the era. For instance, just days after the mass execution, Lincoln issued the text for the Emancipation Proclamation, prompting curious readers to wonder: How does a country see fit to condemn one group of people to death, and then, less than a week later, set another group free?

A captivating tale of an oft-overlooked, morally ambiguous moment in American history.

THE THINGS THAT MATTER

Berkus, Nate Spiegel & Grau (288 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-679-64431-6 978-0-679-64432-3 e-book

An intimate examination of the meaning of material possessions.

Interior designer Berkus (Home Rules: Transform the Place You Live into a Place You’ll Love, 2005) takes readers on a meticulous tour of his own home and those of 12 others, exploring the bits and pieces with which we surround ourselves. Seashells, rocks, glass boxes, framed family photos, trinkets and tchotchkes fill the shelves, nooks and crannies of the homes, each object a reflection of the person who collected it. The book is “about how the prints on our wall and the rough-hewn rocks we swiped from the Marfa farmer’s market give our everyday lives shape, texture, and a sense of who we are, who we’ve been, and where we may be heading.” Explicit descriptions and full-page photographs lead readers from room to room in homes overflowing with items such as “heart-shaped rocks, a little jade necklace, a pair of loving cups, a funny-looking owl, even a steel horse bit that you would swear was made by Gucci”—all requiring Berkus’ sense of order. Other, smaller homes, reduced to the barest | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2223

of pieces by the owners, provide them and Berkus with a much-needed haven from the hectic pace of the outside world.

Whether the item was found in nature or at a local flea market, each is quirky, highly personal and special to the collector.

Having survived his own personal tragedy, Berkus understands the need for comfort in a place where people can feel safe and at home. Through his charming, in-depth descriptions, readers will gain a new appreciation for the multitude of furniture, dishes, paintings, books and knickknacks that fill their own personal havens.

A rewarding book about the stuff that fulfills us.

SPECTRUMS Our Mindboggling Universe from Infinitesimal to Infinity

Blatner, David Walker (192 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-8027-1770-2

A cheerful, comprehensible and nottoo-dumbed-down review of the mate-

rial universe.

Blatner (The Flying Book: Everything You’ve Ever Wondered About Flying on Airplanes, 2004, etc.) stresses that we view reality on our own human scale, ignoring the invisible, often bizarre worlds of the very small, very large and very fast. He proceeds to correct this in a thin volume packed with illustrations, diagrams, marginal quotes and innumerable, if often familiar, gee-whiz analogies—e.g., if the Universe begins on January 1, the Earth appears on September 1, humans in the last hour before New Year’s Eve and all recorded history takes up the final 22 seconds of the year. Chapters on “numbers” and “size” demonstrate that the extremes defy common sense without a heavy dose of imagination. Imaginary numbers themselves (such as the square root of negative one) are essential in scientific calculations. Infinity is not a number but an idea. You can’t reach it by counting, and adding any number to infinity equals infinity. As objects get smaller, they become impossible to picture. An electron has no size or specific location; there’s only a probability that it’s present anywhere in the universe. Physicists calculate that no object can be smaller than the “Planck length,” which is extremely small, and no physical law forbids time to run backward, but it never does.

Longtime readers of popular science will find much that is familiar, but this is a fine introduction for beginners.

(2-color with art)

THE ANTIDOTE Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

Burkeman, Oliver Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-86547-941-8 A fascinating, wide-ranging exploration of negativity, positivity, failure, success and what it means to be happy.

Guardian feature writer Burkeman’s (Help!, 2011) popular newspaper column, “This Column Will Change Your Life,” often reads like a more nuanced, erudite version of the writings of Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Lehrer. Burkeman places a psychological theory at the center and then builds outward.

Here, the author begins by poking gentle fun at the shelves of “by your bootstraps” optimism-laden positivity books and the motivational seminars that offer a secret, answer or formula.

Burkeman quickly pivots to the underlying structure of the book, which is a thoughtful examination of the various alternatives to the optimism-at-all-costs approach. His research yields some surprising, counterintuitive results, with examples of how embracing goal-setting as essential to achievement and profit can blind those involved to a need for change, should the goals prove to run counter to the original aim. By Burkeman’s report, this is a difficult pill for businesspeople to swallow, but noting the effect of relentless goal pursuit on the Mt. Everest hikers made famous in the book Into Thin Air suggests that single-mindedness can be dangerous. Throughout the book, the author advises against this single-mindedness, exploring the benefits of keeping an open mind and not careening wildly toward some type of narrowly defined idea of closure or happiness—“the grinning insistence on optimism...or the demand that success be guaranteed.”

This broad approach toward harnessing our “negative capability” deserves wide readership; the author’s nonprescriptive message has the potential to effect genuine, lasting changes for people who find happiness just out of reach.

DIVINE VINTAGE Following the Wine Trail from Genesis to the Modern Age Butler, Joel; Heskett, Randall Palgrave Macmillan (288 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-230-11243-8

History of biblical viticulture, from Genesis through the New Testament, and the role wine played in the “evolution of humanity from nomadism to a settled society.”

Butler, one of the first two Masters of Wine in America, 2224 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

and biblical scholar Heskett (Reading the Book of Isaiah, 2011, etc.) meld history with exegesis to trace the origins of wine as a drink initially reserved for royalty; a ceremonial ritual; a key ingredient in early Egyptian medicine; an economic resource contended in wars; a currency for soldiers; a symbol and metaphor for restoration and judgment, noted throughout the Bible in verses and parables that reference vines and vineyards; and perhaps most significantly, as a celebratory, substantial force that enables social and cultural connectivity. The authors also explore Persian, Greek and Roman influences on production methods and taste. Their attentive study of the Levant, the Fertile Crescent, surrounding areas, grape varieties, familiar figures and the international exchange forged through the wine trade amply contextualizes their own tour of wineries along the modern equivalent of the route taken by the apostle Paul during his third missionary journey (excluding a few locales). For the connoisseur, these later chapters provide a refreshing glimpse at contemporary winemakers, which are briefly introduced, along with the authors’ assessments and favorites.

Despite the seemingly esoteric topic, the authors skillfully enliven daily life in the distant past, whether detailing amphoras or wine gods—a worthy complement to literature on agriculture in antiquity. (Two 8-page color photo inserts)

A MESSAGE OF HOPE FROM THE ANGELS

Byrne, Lorna Atria (176 pp.) $18.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-4767-0033-5

An Irish mystic shares her transcendent ability to communicate with angels.

In her internationally best-selling memoir Angels in My Hair (2009), Byrne (Stairways to Heaven, 2010, etc.) tapped into the universal appeal of celestial beings, detailing regular, influential contact with seraphs. Here, she continues onward

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2225

“An epic look at the man and his music.” from bruce

with more inspiration. At 12, the author began speaking to the Angel of Hope, who appeared as a towering “masculine” apparition of flaming encouragement. Nearing 60, Byrne still beholds these billowy spirits of differing appearances and degrees of purpose (some are “unemployed”). Some angels teach and guide, she claims, while others encourage strength and the restorative power of prayer. A standout chapter features angels who pride themselves on procuring love and romance. The author unquestionably trusts distinct angels with healing abilities to appear when needed most, as when coping with a disabled child, a family death, financial troubles or debilitating depression. Yes, humans possess healing energies as well, she writes, but angels populate most of these uplifting and inspirational anecdotes— though a few, while imaginative, feel overly contrived. Perhaps Byrne’s unwavering belief in angels stems from her own challenging trials when her husband’s untimely death left her with four children to raise alone. Still, she hugs everyone she meets and believes angelic guardians unconditionally love and assist everyone through life, regardless of how that life has been lived.

Though her writing style lacks depth and sophistication, Byrne’s talent for sprinkling nonjudgmental religious sentiments and positive, compassionate prayers mostly makes up for it.

Heavenly bliss for believers; hokum for skeptics.

BRUCE

Carlin, Peter Ames Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (480 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-4391-9182-8 A painstakingly traced chronicle of the remarkable career of powerhouse proletarian rocker Bruce Springsteen.

If you want to understand the magic and majesty that is The Boss, the best way is though his music. However, Carlin (Paul McCartney: A Life, 2009, etc.) successfully fills in some of the gaps Springsteen has left behind in his lifelong journey—at least the gaps New Jersey’s favorite son now appears willing to address. As one of the most celebrated lyricists in the history of popular music, Springsteen remains a man of few words. In fact, many of the quotes attributed to him have already been published elsewhere. Like a lyric sheet, they often don’t say much absent the spark of music.

Carlin’s own expressiveness, however, is another story and will no doubt have readers reaching for their favorite electronic music delivery system in an attempt to immediately corroborate his take on specific Springsteen tracks and performances.

The author presents his subject as a supremely gifted musician and truly heroic figure, albeit one with a lot on his troubled mind. That darkness, attributed to bad genes and a childhood spent in the shadow of his parents’ gloom following a tragic death in the family, at times reduces the working-class icon to a moody, self-centered and callous taskmaster. Surprisingly, none of these observations—taken in part or as a whole—is particularly damning. On the contrary, they might even serve 2226 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

to ground the ubiquitous superstar, allowing him to become more human and, ultimately, more understandable.

An epic look at the man and his music. (8-page color insert)

THE PARTICLE AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World

Carroll, Sean Dutton (352 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-525-95359-3

A leading particle physicist explains why the official confirmation of the existence of the elusive Higgs Boson (“the God Particle”) was a world-changing scientific milestone.

Carroll (Theoretical Physics/Caltech; From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, 2010, etc.) makes a convincing case for the necessity of supporting basic scientific research that may have no discernible payback. At the cost of billions of dollars and a decades-long international effort by thousands of scientists, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva is Big Science on steroids. The LHC uses superconducting magnets to accelerate protons traveling in opposite directions, almost to the speed of light. The massive amount of energy released when they collide results in the creation of the Higgs particle, which then rapidly decays, revealing the track of more recognizable particles. In the author’s view, the days are over when an individual scientist such as Carl Anderson (working with a team of students) could build a cloud chamber and be the first to reveal evidence of antimatter by identifying the track of a positron. With the help of diagrams and vivid, descriptive language, Carroll reveals the scientific background to the discovery and why it has given scientists a glimpse of how the universe works on the most fundamental, subatomic level. The Higgs particle fills in a piece of the puzzle, but the author recognizes that despite the success of this endeavor, building an even larger, next-generation collider may prove politically difficult.

A fascinating chronicle of an important chapter in fundamental science.

ROUND ABOUT THE EARTH Circumnavigation From Magellan to Orbit

Chaplin, Joyce E. Simon & Schuster (560 pp.) $35.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-4165-9619-6

Relying largely on first-person accounts, Chaplin (History/Harvard Univ.; The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius, 2006, etc.) pieces together a centuries-old story: our obsession with circling the globe.

The notion goes back to the ancient Greeks and the myth of Phaeton, whose planetary circling has been duplicated by such fictional characters as Shakespeare’s Puck, Milton’s Satan and Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg. Throughout her witty, highly readable chronicle of real-life adventurers, Chaplin pays tribute to these globe-trotters and to authors like Defoe, Coleridge, Poe, Twain, London and DeLillo, who have mined the idea of circumnavigation for its dramatic possibilities. She divides her planetary drama into three acts: first, from Magellan to Captain Cook, when the overriding theme of an around-the-world voyage was death—a shocking mortality rate accompanied almost every attempt; second, from the 1780s to the 1920s, an age marked by confidence, when technologies and political arrangements had sufficiently advanced so as to moderate the risk; third, our own era, in which the perils of air and space have reintroduced the dangers, where doubt has crept back into any calculation of safe return. Chock-full of famous names and crowded with lots of “firsts” (first woman, first American, first cyclist, first motor car, first nuclear sub) Chaplin’s story features grand enterprises (Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet), solo stunts (Francis Chichester’s tiny sailboat, Gipsy Moth) and even animals (Cook’s famous goat and the Soviet dog Laika). The sheer scale of the endeavor, the singular space, time and mindwarping nature of circumnavigation, almost guarantees interesting reading, but Chaplin, an informed and perceptive guide, adds greatly to the fun.

A welcome, unique addition to our travel literature. (16page b/w photo insert)

SUPER BRAIN Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-Being

Chopra, Deepak and Tanzi, Rudolph E. Harmony (320 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-307-95682-8 978-0-307-95684-2 e-book

A mixture of recent research in the neurosciences and spiritual wisdom passed down through generations.

With his dozens of best-selling books, Chopra (co-author: War of the Worldviews: Science vs. Spirituality, 2011, etc.) has arguably done more than anyone to bring Eastern spirituality and healing practices to the West. His oeuvre brings to mind an inebriated dart player in a tavern—many attempts go wild, but when he connects, you’re convinced he’s a natural. This book, co-authored with Alzheimer’s Genome Project head Tanzi (Neurology/Harvard Medical School; co-author: Decoding Darkness: The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2001, etc.), continues the trend of laying Eastern thought over Western science. This “tag team” author approach lends credibility to the less scientifically rigorous ideas Chopra has to offer, but with varying degrees of success. The plasticity of the young brain and the rate at which new synapse connections are made in children; the importance of regular physical activity and exercise; the idea that instincts and emotions are integral and necessary to social relations—these scientific propositions, as they’re laid out, won’t strike readers as either controversial or revolutionary. The authors theorize about connections between neuroscience and long-held beliefs about the mind, and many of these connections don’t require a leap of faith to accept as valid hypotheses. The lion’s share of the text, however, consists of platitudes and value judgments about happiness and success that can’t really be held forth as a prescription for the “next leap in the human brain’s evolution.” Examples include such statements as, “Mind, not the brain, is the origin of consciousness,” and the suggestions that an abused wife should “stop exposing herself to stresses that occur over and over.”

For Chopra fans only—as such, likely to become a best-seller.

EXIT THE COLONEL The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution Chorin, Ethan PublicAffairs (384 pp.) $29.99 | Oct. 23, 2012 978-1-61039-171-9

A firsthand account of the fall of Gaddafi and the processes that caused it.

Chorin (Translating Libya: The Modern Libyan Short Story, 2008), co-founder of a trauma center in Benghazi and one of the first U.S. diplomats to return to Libya after the lifting of international sanctions in 2004, considers the 2011 intervention “one of the largest ironies of the Libyan revolution,” examining how, in the seven years after sanctions were lifted, arms sales and commercial deals were permitted to proceed. The author makes a strong case that the U.S. and U.K., in particular, “were so obsessed with completing other narratives on terrorism and counter-proliferation…that they never stated what Gaddafi was expected to do… to remain in their good graces.” Consequently, he was allowed to conclude significant oil and gas deals, which generated funds for the purchase of weapons and systems that strengthened his internal police state. Chorin details the divisions within the | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2227

“The Irish grew up with tales of the Great Hunger, but the full story is just now unfolding. This book is a great start.” from the famine plot

Bush administration on how to proceed, while highlighting those who believed “Gaddafi’s conversion was about as likely as sticky three-fingered aliens landing on the White House lawn.”

The author situates his narrative within a discussion of Libya’s history, providing background on the discovery of oil and the origins of the industry and tracing the roots of the regime to the scars left by the Italian occupation under Mussolini. He discusses the existing internal and external oppositions and shows how Gaddafi used his rehabilitation to both co-opt and eliminate opponents. While Libya’s revolt appears to have erupted suddenly, Chorin ably demonstrates how failed policies of the past contributed to its inevitability.

A strongly written book that sheds new light on a stilldeveloping story.

THE GRAND TOUR Around the World with the Queen of Mystery Christie, Agatha Prichard, Matthew—Ed. Harper/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $27.99 | Dec. 1, 2012 978-0-06-219122-9

A collection of the mystery writer’s 1922 British Empire Tour correspondence.

For editor Prichard, Agatha Christie’s grandson, this book is treasured memorabilia. For Christie fans, these letters and photographs will be a delightful addition to the author’s oeuvre.

Essentially a marketing ploy, the tour, sponsored by the British Empire Exhibition Mission, had four goals: “to produce new sources of wealth by exploiting the raw materials of the Empire; to foster inter-Imperial trade; to open new world markets for Dominican and British products; and to encourage interaction between different cultures and people of the Empire.…” With her husband and other participants, the 32-year-old author traveled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada over the course of 10 months. The letters between Christie and her mother showcase the author’s innate storytelling ability and insights on life following World War I. “From a historical point of view the account of the Grand Tour, both literary and photographic, is a remarkable snapshot of life in the 1920s, nostalgic and curious,” writes the editor. What emerges is a portrait of a spontaneous, direct woman engaged in the changing environment around her. In Honolulu, Christie surfed; in South Africa, she toured vineyards and tasted the wine; and she fell in love with New Zealand. Christie’s letters are complemented by the abundant photos.

A magical tour back to a time before telephone and instant forms of communication. Narrated by a woman who went on to become the most widely published author of all time, this volume should delight both Christie fans and history buffs. (B/W photographs throughout)

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THE FAMINE PLOT England’s Role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy

Coogan, Tim Pat Palgrave Macmillan (288 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-230-10952-0

Acclaimed Irish historian Coogan (Ireland in the Twentieth Century, 2004, etc.) opens up the truth about the Irish potato famine, and it’s uglier than you thought.

The potato was not just the staple of the poor Irish diet; it was all they had. For seven years beginning in 1845, Phytophthora infestans wreaked havoc on the potato crop in Ireland.

Prime Minister Robert Peel made some effort to assuage the problem, however misguided, allowing the purchase of Indian maize from America, which the Irish couldn’t properly grind and which made them sick. Coogan points out the many other problems to English aid—e.g., to obtain relief, you had to sign over your land, many soup kitchens would only give soup to those who converted to Protestantism, and no relief could be given outside the workhouse. Evictions, emigration and a policy of laissez faire were the British answers to the crisis. The author is hellbent on setting the record straight. He boldly condemns Irish historians, most educated by the English, who downplayed the horror and evaded the issue of British decision-makers’ responsibility. They completely ignored the hate creation of the English press and the landlords who despised the human misery along the roadsides and in the filthy workhouses. The admission by Prime Minister Tony Blair of the failure of the English government to support a country that was part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world has set a good beginning to get at the truth.

The Irish grew up with tales of the Great Hunger, but the full story is just now unfolding. This book is a great start. (8-page glossy photo insert. Author tour to New York, Chicago, Boston)

REAL MAN ADVENTURES

Cooper, T McSweeney’s (192 pp.) $22.00 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-1-938073-00-7

Sublime confidence and spirit distinguishes this unorthodox memoir of gender and identity.

Novelist Cooper (The Beaufort Diaries, 2010, etc.) establishes his point of view early on when describing himself as a droll, outspoken, Jewish, darker-skinned man who has undergone gender reassignment surgery. Wholly at ease in his own skin, he unleashes a flood of provocatively opinionated, informative slices of his life as a fully transitioned female-to-male American. With lively writing throughout, Cooper presents

haiku pieces, childhood memories and the “sitting down to urinate” debate creatively interwoven with frank discussions of transgender violence, poignant commentary from his wife, who constantly fears for her husband’s safety (they live in a “decidedly conservative and religious” Southern state), and the author’s innermost fears. Cooper also shares varied versions of a revealing 2009 letter to his parents explaining how their daughter is now (and has always been) “basically a dude.”

Extended interviews with “seasoned tranny” Kate Bornstein, Cooper’s brother (a member of the LAPD) and the parents of other transgendered acquaintances are probing, entertaining and revealing. The author’s inner journey toward selfawareness seems to have been relatively smooth, other than a series of conversational minefields he encounters regularly when discussing his gender identity with others. But chapters on his own personal confusion and uncertainty demonstrate a distinct consciousness for the paradoxical nature of the transgender experience at large.

A memoir infused with personality and the ballsy honesty of someone for whom becoming a man was “the most natural thing in the world.”

RWANDA, INC. How a Devastated Nation Became an Economic Model for the Developing World

Crisafulli, Patricia ;Redmond, Andrea Palgrave Macmillan (256 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-230-34022-0

A mostly optimistic assessment of the small East African nation nearly destroyed by genocide during the first

half of the 1990s.

Crisafulli and Redmond (co-authors: Comebacks: Powerful Lessons from Leaders Who Endured Setbacks and Recaptured Success on Their Terms, 2010) focus on the post-genocide presidency of Paul Kagame, a Rwandan native who grew up as an exile in Uganda and returned to his homeland as the leader of military rebels hoping to restore unity. Kagame is not portrayed as completely flawless, but nearly so. He earns accolades from the authors, who have traveled extensively in Rwanda, for helping to heal the nation after a million or more deaths due to hostility between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Crisafulli and Redmond depict Kagame running Rwanda more or less like the powerful, benevolent CEO of a major corporation. Improvements in poverty levels, education, health and electrification are impressive by any measure, although the country has a long way to go before the majority of its residents can be called prosperous. The authors suggest that an apt comparison can be found in South Korea, which developed quickly once its citizenry expressed the desire for change and identified appropriate leaders. This comparison would be more persuasive if the authors’ discussion of Rwandan development depended

less on generalities. However, a few specific examples resonate strongly, such as the story of a Westerner who studied the coffee trade in Rwanda and found a way to increase exports while improving the lot of local coffee growers. According to Rwanda’s new constitution, Kagame must surrender the presidency after serving two electoral terms. The authors say they believe he will step aside peacefully in 2017 because of his love for the nation.

Despite an occasionally confusing narrative structure, the authors provide an instructive snapshot of Rwanda today.

OUT OF THE BLUE

Cruz, Victor with Schrager, Peter Celebra/Penguin (304 pp.) $26.95 | Jul. 17, 2012 978-0-451-41615-5 Above-average sports autobiography by New York Giants star wide receiver Cruz.

After scoring a touchdown, Cruz always dances the salsa in honor of his Puerto Rican grandmother and as a reminder of the formidable odds he had to overcome to reach iconic sports status. Born and raised in the tough town of Paterson, N.J., where trouble was always easy to find, Cruz was blessed with athletic talent but also intelligence, determination and, most importantly, mentors. His grandparents, mother and father—a Paterson firefighter who entered Cruz’s life at age 7—insured he would make the right choices, channeling his talents and energies into sports and school. Cruz, ably assisted

by FOXSports.com writer Schrager, offers loving portraits of these and others who shaped his life. After receiving a scholarship to UMass Amherst (only after taking the SATs several times to reach the required score), he promptly flunked out, not once, but twice. “My behavior,” he notes in a refreshing bit of candor, “was shameful…I had become the stereotypical dumb jock.” After penance at a community college and work in a mall, Cruz graduated from college. Then, unheralded and undrafted, he was signed by the Giants. The author devotes much of the narrative to the Giants’ road to the Super Bowl, but the real story is Cruz’s journey, including all the triumphs and tragedies and the people who loved and guided him.

With mature wisdom and youthful exuberance, Cruz tells an important story of the possibilities life offers.

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“Entertaining story of a dynamic literary woman who sparked a fascinating life from the changing currents of the age.” from american lady

AMERICAN LADY The Life of Susan Mary Alsop

de Margerie, Caroline Translated by Murray, Christopher Viking (256 pp.) $26.95 | Nov. 26, 2012 978-0-670-02574-9

An engagingly restrained portrait of an aristocratic woman whose marriages propelled her post–World War II political reach and literary accomplishments.

Descendant of the early American diplomat John Jay, Susan Mary (1918–2004), as she was always known, employed all the trappings of her privileged upbringing to create a purposeful, useful career. Raised largely abroad, as her father served as a diplomat around the world, Susan Mary demonstrated serious inquisitiveness at an early age and chose the men in her life with an eye to their power and influence. Her first husband, William Patten, served as economic analyst at the U.S. Embassy in Paris from 1945 to 1960, thus allowing Susan Mary a rare entrée into the difficult, exciting postwar remaking of Europe. There, she met Duff Cooper, British ambassador to Paris, who became her lover and fathered her first child. After Patten’s death, she married Joe Alsop, the influential editorial writer for the New York Herald Tribune, intimate of JFK and homosexual (Alsop told her outright), with whom she set up her formidable salon in Georgetown. Thin, fashionable, well informed, yet a little wicked, Susan Mary had what it took to be talked about, and the Alsops’ gatherings were the talk of Georgetown’s “glory years.” Eventually, Alsop’s rabid defense of the Vietnam War estranged many, including his wife, and they separated. In her mature years, Susan Mary achieved literary success with her published letters to longtime friend Marietta Tree. Paris-based author de Margerie paints in bold, bright outlines the compelling story of this Jamesian heroine.

Entertaining story of a dynamic literary woman who sparked a fascinating life from the changing currents of the age.

DWARF A Memoir

DiDonato, Tiffanie with Dyball, Rennie Plume (272 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Dec. 1, 2012 978-0-452-29811-8

With the assistance of People editor Dyball (co-author: A Famous Dog’s Life: The Story of Gidget, America’s Most Beloved Chihuahua, 2011, etc.), first-time author DiDonato tells the remarkable tale of her lifelong battle to overcome diastrophic dysplasia, a crippling genetic disorder that not only causes unusually short limbs, but chronic arthritis.

While many children long to be taller, the author decided 2230 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

early on to do whatever it took to combat her body’s literal shortcomings so she could perform such ordinary tasks as taking out the trash. Born with clubbed feet, the author underwent her first corrective surgery when she was 2 days old and then again at the age 2. With arms so short she couldn’t reach her own ears or other body parts, DiDonato improvised, employing salad tongs to wipe herself and help pull up her socks. But at 8 years of age and standing only 3 feet 8 inches tall, the constant desire for greater independence led her and her mother to seek out radical bone-lengthening treatments. A veteran of dozens of childhood surgeries, DiDonato viewed the pain and temporary immobility resulting from these grueling procedures as mere means to an end. Having gained four inches from her first lengthening surgeries and endured their torturous aftermath, the author chose to undertake the procedures again at 15, seeking out a surgeon who would enable her to risk going beyond the recommended additional three inches in height to whatever length her body could take. Throughout this engaging memoir, the author’s resolve to do “whatever it takes to live an independent life” proves unwavering, even in the face of criticism from others facing similar challenges who considered her choices motivated by a lack of self-acceptance.

Sappy toward the end, but mostly uplifting and profound.

JEWISH JOCKS An Unorthodox Hall of Fame

Foer, Franklin;Tracy, Marc--Eds. Twelve (304 pp.) $26.99 | $10.99 e-book | Oct. 30, 2012 978-1-4555-1613-1 978-1-4555-1611-7 e-book

A collection of essays about the most influential Jews in sports history.

New Republic editor Foer (How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, 2005) and New Republic staff writer Tracy present a diverse collection of Jewish athletes celebrated by Jewish authors. Many of the 50 athletes included—e.g., Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, Sid Luckman, Mark Spitz—will be familiar even to non-Jewish sports fans, while others—tabletennis star Marty Reisman, Nazi-era German fencing champ Helene Mayer, kung-fu instructor Harvey Sober and “the Ben Franklin of Competitive Eating,” Don Lerman—will not. The list of contributors is also distinguished, with several Pulitzer Prize winners, Ivy League professors, novelists and even former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. The essays range from standard profiles to personal reminiscences. Most, but not all, of the athletes are American. In addition to Joshua Cohen’s piece on Mayer, there is Simon Schama’s fascinating essay about English pugilist Daniel Mendoza, David Bezmozgis’ profile of Soviet strongman Grigory Novak and Timothy Snyder’s piece on Austro-Hungarian author Max Nordau, whose speech to the 1898 Second Zionist Congress called on Jews to develop their muscles to overcome weakness. This theme of athleticism counteracting the stereotype of the Jew as weak victim runs

through many of the essays, though it may be slightly undermined by the application of the “jock” title to Nordau and other nonathletes, such as gambler and 1919 World Series fixer Arnold Rothstein, Washington Post sports columnist Shirley Povich and broadcast legend Howard Cosell. Their inclusion on the basis of their significant impacts on the landscape of sports is, however, well-defended by Foer and Tracy. Other highlights include Jonathan Safran Foer on Bobby Fischer, Steven Pinker on Red Auerbach, Buzz Bissinger on Barney Ross and George Packer on Mark Cuban.

A must for the bookshelf of any Jewish sports fan.

NAPOLEON Life, Legacy, and Image: A Biography

Forrest, Alan St. Martin’s (416 pp.) $27.99 | Dec. 11, 2012 978-1-250-00903-6 978-1-250-01815-1 e-book

Forrest (Modern History/Univ. of York; Paris, the Provinces and the French Revolution, 2004, etc.) offers a balanced view of one of history’s most complex and controversial characters.

The author seeks not only to show us Napoleon the man, but also Napoleon the player in a vast drama in which he was a principal but not the only player. Forrest begins with the hoopla attending the return of Napoleon’s remains to Paris in 1840 (he’d been interred on St. Helena when he died in 1821).

Then, the author backtracks to Corsica and Napoleon’s boyhood, education and military training, the revolution and his emergence as a gifted military strategist and officer. Forrest shows us Napoleon’s voracious reading habits, his patronage of artists and writers, and his ability to identify gifted administrators and marshals. But we also see his congenital inability to delegate, a fault caused by “his arrogance and his complete faith in his own abilities.” The author traces Napoleon’s political rise from consul to emperor and tries to communicate concisely the intricate political alliances in Europe—alliances that at first propelled him into power but eventually led to Waterloo. The author argues that Napoleon’s “Continental System” (imposing French ways everywhere) was “a strategic error” that alienated potential and actual allies. Forrest praises Napoleon for some things—the legal codes, the emphasis on education, the support of scholarly research, especially in Egypt—but as the story advances, all is overwhelmed by the cascades of blood flowing from the battlefields he loved.

An open-minded, cleareyed view of a man who manifested the best and the worst of his species. (8-page color insert)

DIARY OF A STAGE MOTHER’S DAUGHTER A Memoir

Francis, Melissa Weinstein Books (288 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-60286-172-5 978-1-60286-175-6 e-book

Chilling memoir by a Fox Business Network anchor and child star chronicles the misery of growing up with a cruel, controlling and abusive stage mother.

Francis’ narrative grabs readers immediately. She became a TV actress at age 8, when she captured the role of Cassandra Cooper Ingalls on the prime-time soap opera Little House on the Prairie. She chafed but thrived under her mother’s relentless pressure to succeed: “My mom had a power over me, over all of us, for a long time. I was hostage to her moods, her violence, her praise, her favor, all doled out in random doses and with confusing inconsistency, which had been designed to control me, training me to crave her attention like a starving dog.” By contrast, their mother neglected or harangued Francis’ older sister, who disliked being in the spotlight. By the time Francis left home to study economics at Harvard, her sister’s life was crumbling, and the intense closeness they once shared had evaporated. As the author’s romantic life and TV news career began to gel, her sister remained mired in a lonely, directionless existence. This destructive pattern ultimately resulted in a family tragedy; Francis still feels guilty about not doing more for her sister. But now that she is the mother of two children, she understands that each child is unique and requires his or her own style of nurturance. “The one size fits all, hard line approach to pushing children as hard as you can and demanding the very best doesn’t fit them both,” she writes, “as it didn’t fit both Tiffany and me.”

One of those intimate, heartbreaking, doubled-edged stories that is hard to read, impossible to put down.

CHARLES DICKENS IN LOVE

Garnett, Robert Pegasus (448 pp.) $28.95 | Dec. 15, 2012 978-1-60598-395-0

A detailed and well-documented but limited account of the great loves of Charles Dickens (1812–1870).

In his debut, Garnett (English/ Gettysburg Coll.) combines scholarly detective work, biographical criticism and imagination to show how Dickens’ three major romantic attachments would shape his life and art. The first was Maria Beadnell, the local rich girl who spurned him; on the rebound, he married Catherine Hogarth, who had nothing in common with him (except the 10 children she would go on to bear him). | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2231

“A well-researched and engaging biography and a fine addition to Marshall scholarship.” from young thurgood

It was Catherine’s younger sister, the delicate Mary, who became his next obsession; her death at 17 made her, for Dickens, an immortal vision of angelic purity. Both Mary and Maria would appear in David Copperfield as the polar opposites of the title character’s love life. Garnett devotes most of his book to Dickens’ longtime affair with the young actress Ellen “Nelly” Ternan, an open secret to his close intimates but one strenuously concealed from the Victorian world. Although the story has been told before, Garnett maps out this lengthy liaison in close detail, based on a mountain of circumstantial evidence from Dickens’ coded diaries, novels and whatever wasn’t censored from his surviving correspondence. Although the author makes a credible case that Ellen was the true love of the writer’s life, he doesn’t tell the whole story. Catherine is all but absent from the book, and Garnett says little about how Dickens’ selfish behavior throughout this episode would alienate his children.

A wealth of entertaining information in an ultimately incomplete account. (8 pages of color illustrations)

CALLING DR. LAURA A Graphic Memoir

Georges, Nicole J. Illus. by Georges, Nicole J. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (288 pp.) $16.95 paperback | Jan. 22, 2013 978-0-547-61559-2

A meandering graphic memoir by a young cartoonist who seems to have most of her story ahead of her.

The pivotal points of the narrative come nearly 200 pages apart. Early on, Georges (Invincible Summer 2, 2008, etc.) writes about a visit to a palm reader who tells her that the father she’s never known, who she’s been told by her mother is dead, is in fact alive. The second arrives with the title incident toward the end, after the author has found out little about her father except for the fact that he likely is alive. She makes a call to Dr. Laura on how to handle her Christmas visit with the mother she no longer trusts. There’s also some subtext to this—not shared with Dr. Laura—that the author is a closeted lesbian, and her mother became estranged from an older daughter when she came out. That sister has also provided the author with testimony that her father (the younger sister’s; the older sisters have a different father) is alive. The narrative lacks focus and command, skipping all over the place chronologically as well as geographically, as the author addresses her not-verydramatic relationships with girlfriends, her series of stepfathers and would-be father figures and her reluctance to address her sexuality with her mother (much to the annoyance of her livein lover). There are lots of animals as well, mostly dogs, but a pet chicken, too. The narrative builds to the phone call with Dr. Laura, who has been barely mentioned through the preceding 190 pages, and whose cut-to-the-chase advice is curt, cold and not very helpful. “I cut my losses and moved forward,” writes Georges, in what seems to be the end of the prologue for the 2232 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

life to come. And then comes the epilogue, in which she (kind of) solves the mystery of her father.

The mostly engaging tone and humor can’t compensate for a lack of substance and continuity. (Author tour including San Francisco, Portland, Seattle)

YOUNG THURGOOD The Making of a Supreme Court Justice Gibson, Larry S. Prometheus Books (390 pp.) $28.00 | Dec. 4, 2012 978-1-61614-571-2

In his debut, Gibson (Univ. of Maryland School of Law) looks at the early years of the legendary Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993).

Marshall, a brilliant legal mind, became the first black Supreme Court justice in 1967, and before that, he was the chief counsel for the plaintiffs in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, in which school segregation was declared unconstitutional. But while Marshall’s law career has been amply covered by other biographers, his earlier life has gotten relatively short shrift. This biography, by contrast, focuses solely on the first 30 years of Marshall’s life. Growing up, Marshall intensely discussed politics and race relations with his father. “He never told me to be a lawyer, but he turned me into one,” Marshall later said. Indeed, Gibson writes that Marshall inherited his family members’ assertive and deeply hardworking natures. Marshall experienced segregation firsthand, attending an all-black high school; he refined his brilliant debating style on the debate team there and, later, at historically black Lincoln University. Gibson also covers Marshall’s time at Howard University Law School and his first cases as a Baltimore lawyer, which led to his work with the NAACP and civil rights law. The author, who met Marshall a few times in the 1970s and ’80s, writes in his introduction of how he wished to correct the record regarding some details of Marshall’s early life—noting, for example, that while some sources have claimed that Marshall was a mediocre student before law school, Gibson’s research found that Marshall had in fact graduated high school with honors at the age of 16. But this biography also deftly evokes the atmosphere in which Marshall developed his talents and effectively sketches the many people and events that influenced him.

A well-researched and engaging biography and a fine addition to Marshall scholarship.

MASTERY

Greene, Robert Viking (320 pp.) $28.95 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-670-02496-4 Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.

The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability.

Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers,

and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin.

In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin’s struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author’s quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h w i l l s c h wa l b e

the end of your life book club

Will Schwalbe Knopf (352 pp.) $25.00 Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-307-59403-7

Will S chwalbe is a genuinely good guy who has spent much of his life championing the authors we love as editor-in-chief at Hyperion. When I was struggling to write about David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter in 2007 following the author’s untimely demise, Schwalbe stepped in to provide an affectionate tribute to the book. When Schwalbe quietly left his position the following year, no one knew he was taking time for a very good reason.

Those reasons unfold in The End of Your Life Book Club, the touching account of the life of letters Schwalbe shared with his inspiring mother, Mary Anne, who passed away in 2009. Recently, the author spoke with Kirkus about this very personal, yet universal story.

Q: The range of books you read together was quite diverse, from Gilead to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. How did you choose these books, and what kinds of conversations did they inspire?

Q: Tell us about the meaning of your title, The End of Your Life Book Club.

Q: Your mother was a woman of extraordinary accomplishments, particularly her educational and humanitarian work. How do you believe she would like to be remembered?

A: It actually never occurred to me to call the book anything else. It’s always been The End of Your Life Book Club. That’s because every time I went with Mom to her chemo appointments, I was reminded of something fairly obvious but something it’s easy to forget—that we are all in end of our life book clubs, that no one knows which book or conversation will be the last. Whenever I remind myself that I’m in the end of my life book club, I remember to try to make each book and each conversation really count, especially conversations with people I love. At one point, a friend suggested to me that I call the book “The Rest of Your Life Book Club,” but that didn’t have the urgency that I wanted. That made it sound like all of us have all the time in the world—and we don’t. All we know is that we have now.

Q: This book delivers a very personal insight into an extraordinary, yet universal experience. What made you want to share the story of you and your mother, Mary Ann, with readers?

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A: I think she would have liked to know that her work as an educator and as a refugee advocate will be remembered, especially her work on behalf of women and children refugees. I think she would have wanted to be remembered for listening and helping others be heard. And I’m certain she would have liked to know that she will be remembered as a grandmother—she adored her five grandchildren.

Q: Why do you think we find books so comforting in difficult times?

A: Books demand of us that we pay attention and that we think and that we feel, but they don’t demand that we say anything. When you read a book, you listen with your eyes. In difficult times, there are decisions to make, and there are regrets about decisions past and about mistakes and missed opportunities.

When you are fully engaged in a book, you don’t need to make decisions other than to pay attention.

And I think that’s a comfort. Books also gave us a way to talk about very difficult and painful things when we couldn’t bring ourselves to face them head on. At those times, we could talk about characters when we were really talking about ourselves.

I also think books are great equalizers. As I wrote, when Mom and I were reading, we weren’t a sick person and a well person, but a mother and son sharing a journey and learning new things. And that was a huge comfort, too.

—By Clayton Moore

p h oto c o u rt esy o f Mic h a el L i on s ta r

A: What I really wanted to do was share with people the role that books played in our lives, and the way to do that was to tell our story. I think many people who don’t read think that reading is a kind of escape— that it’s the opposite of doing something. You even hear people say things like, “Why don’t you put down that book and do something?” But reading is doing something, and it’s one of the most important things in the world. I wanted to show how books can teach, entertain, help you talk about difficult things, change the way you see the world around you, show you what you need to do in the world, comfort and inspire.

And I wanted to show how books could bring people closer to each other, at a very difficult time—even two people who were already very close.

A: Often we read books because they were given to us, by a friend or relative. Mom was thrifty, so if you gave her a book, she would read it. Many of the books we read, like Big Machine by Victor LaValle, were ones we’d seen reviewed or mentioned in print or in the media; some were books one of us had always meant to read; and some were literally books we knocked off a display in a bookshop. Often, one book we loved made us think of another or led to another. And sometimes we revisited old favorites.

“The author is well aware of the issues involved, and he displays a facility in explaining the complexity of global warming mechanisms and the nature of energy.” from the carbon crunch

TITIAN His Life

Hale, Sheila Harper (864 pp.) $39.99 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-0-06-059876-1 A learned but not entirely compelling portrait of the great Venetian painter.

Hale’s (The Man Who Lost His Language, 2002, etc.) goal is to capture Titian (1488/90–1576) and his 16th-century world, where employment meant staying in the good graces of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Pope Clement VII or Philip II of Spain. Being a genius didn’t hurt either; Titian could even manage to miss deadlines—a battle scene commissioned in 1516 didn’t arrive until 1538—because the result was a masterpiece: realer than real life, an improvement on nature. The facts alone attest to an intense life, and facts alone seem to be Hale’s specialty. She’s from the throw-nothing-away school of biography, where minor transactions receive as much attention as major battles; as a result, Titian frequently gets lost in the so-called bigger picture. He isn’t even the most interesting character.

That would be his best friend Pietro Aretino, a pornographer, flatterer and would-be cardinal who literally died laughing.

Hale is better at capturing Titian’s art than his life; she expertly shows how he worked—mixing colors, applying “transparent glazes and semi-opaque scumbles” to create “a cool, hazy subdued effect”—and astutely describes the paintings. The subject of Charles V on Horseback, for example, is “masterful, thoughtful, weary, earnest, certain of his purpose but unsure of his ability to achieve it in the time left to him.” The author also asks probing questions about his art, such as the violent Flaying of Marsyas: “Did he want to discover what lay beneath the living flesh that his contemporaries said he painted not with pigments but as though with real, trembling skin?”

While not the big, dramatic narrative Titian deserves, Hale’s biography frequently rewards the patience it demands. (Two 16-page color inserts; printed endpapers)

AND NOW WE SHALL DO MANLY THINGS Discovering My Manhood Through the Great (and NotSo-Great) American Hunt Heimbuch, Craig Morrow/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $15.99 paperback | $9.99 e-book Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-06-219786-3 978-0-06-219787-0 e-book

A journalist attempts to reclaim his flagging manhood through hunting.

Online family-issues guru (manofthehouse.com) Heimbuch (Chasing Oliver Hazard Perry, 2010) roots this book in his desire

to suddenly live up to the manly Midwestern values of his avid hunter father, who one day gave his son a 12-gauge shotgun as a gift. Heimbuch had been outdoorsy—fly fisherman, gearhead and L.L. Bean enthusiast—but had never ventured into guntoting territory. The author’s quest to validate his manhood via pheasant hunting soon goes beyond the father-son issues into more of a personal challenge to break out of his blandly routinized life as a small-time reporter and dutiful husband. Along the way, the book derives its comedic appeal from Heimbuch’s built-in liberal defenses against the largely conservative gun culture he had to force himself to confront. In fact, his inaugural visit to the NRA’s Rivers of Freedom convention became the perfect opportunity to mine his combination of disgust and wide-eyed fascination with this gun-nut spectacle (complete with an appearance by gun-loving former rocker Ted Nugent) for comedic gold. The conflicted author then headed out for the wilds of Iowa to test his newfound resolve as a pheasant hunter, and he devotes the second half of the book to the unintentional humor that naturally comes out of a newbie hunter chasing elusive feathered creatures around in a forest. But Heimbuch doggedly persevered, and in the end, his noble quest to become a successful gamesman narrowly avoids anticlimax. Although the book essentially thrives on self-deprecating humor, there are some well-illustrated lessons about the unexpected benefits of stepping outside comfortable workaday routines to get a clearer perspective on one’s potential as a human being.

A lightweight but entertaining seriocomic search for self hood.

THE CARBON CRUNCH How We’re Getting Climate Change Wrong—and How to Fix It

Helm, Dieter Yale Univ. (304 pp.) $35.00 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-300-18659-8

A serious attempt to address climate change: “why it matters, what causes [it], and who is responsible.”

Broadly speaking, it has been 20 years since global warming received the attention it deserved, and still, writes Helm (Energy Policy/Univ. of Oxford), “the emissions keep going up, and nothing of substance has been achieved.” The author is well aware of the issues involved, and he displays a facility in explaining the complexity of global warming mechanisms and the nature of energy. This is no time for dithering, he writes. We must identify the culprits, find alternatives and take immediate action. Helm fingers coal as the greatest man-made contributor to the greenhouse effect, and we are all perpetrators, from South Africa to the United States to Europe—although juggernauts China and India are really dashing to coal as cheap energy.

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must integrate carbon into our economy and pay for the emissions we cause through carbon pricing. The author points out the serious sustainability problems of current renewable energies—wind, solar, biomass and biofuels—and suggests a transitional strategy of switching from coal to natural gas, which has half the carbon footprint of coal (the author is well aware of the issue surrounding fracking), and start investing in research into new low-carbon technologies, including energy storage and smart technologies.

An optimistically levelheaded book about actually dealing with global warming.

THE MISSING INK The Lost Art of Handwriting

Hensher, Philip Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-86547-893-0

Critic and novelist Hensher (Creative Writing/Univ. of Exeter; King of the Badgers, 2012, etc.) laments the loss of handwriting instruction and surveys the history of our love affair with the pen.

After some introductory comments about the onceimportant but now diminishing significance of handwriting in our culture, the author zooms back a few thousand years for a glimpse at the invention of writing. He then gradually moves forward to look at the various styles and techniques and teaching philosophies that once rose, reigned and fell. He occasionally inserts minichapters (all called “Witness”) that comprise interviews with people of differing ages, genders and professions discussing their handwriting, how they learned it and how they feel about it. (These are not the most riveting sections of the text.) Hensher looks closely at the methods that once were prominent—copperplate, Spencer, Palmer and others—and offers some surprising tidbits along the way—e.g., hand printing (as opposed to script) did not emerge until the early 20th century. The author also discusses the handwriting of significant historical figures ranging from Dickens to Hitler; talks about the role of handwriting in literature from Sherlock Holmes to Proust; charts the history of the quill, the steel nib and ink; and sketches the history of the “pseudo-science of graphology.” He waxes ironic and amusing, too, several times suggesting that a person who dot his i’s with little hearts is a “moron.” The author ends with a wistful list of things we might do to save the dying art.

Informative, amusing and idiosyncratic—just like an interesting letter written in unique hand. (30 b/w illustrations)

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PRAIRIE SILENCE A Memoir

Hoffert, Melanie Beacon (248 pp.) $24.95 | Jan. 8, 2013 978-0-8070-4473-5 978-0-8070-4474-2 e-book

A rural expatriate examines the pain caused by leaving the place she loved, the struggle involved in aligning her sexuality with faith and hometown values, and the devastation wrought by rural depopulation.

Hoffert grew up in a tiny North Dakota farm town. From a young age the author understood she was gay. After attending college, she established a successful professional career and satisfying personal life in Minneapolis. Though the lure of home persisted, when she returned, she remained mute regarding her sexual preference. “There is something that silences the stories of lives,” she writes, “…and something that pushes those who cannot stand the silence away from the beauty that was once their childhood home.” Hoffert returned home for a month during harvest season, intent on exploring the stark, beautiful landscape, working on the family farm and discovering the root of the ingrained silence surrounding her sexuality. Woven into the author’s personal exploration are startling and sad facts on the state of rural life in America, illustrating the “painfully irreversible population decline” that is leading to the extinction of small towns across the country. Hoffert ponders the meaning of this loss and whether she is a member of “the first generation to realize that the world of rural America—both the good and bad of it—will never again be as it once was.” The author’s mostly quiet narrative includes a wealth of haunting images and ideas that will linger long after the last sentence.

A heartfelt love song to a place and its people as well as an honest and rewarding rendering of the author’s interior landscape. (Author tour to New York, Minneapolis, Fargo, San Francisco, Los Angeles)

BECAUSE I SAID SO! The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids Jennings, Ken Scribner (256 pp.) $19.99 | Dec. 4, 2012 978-1-4516-5625-1

A fun, lighthearted compendium of conventional wisdom, mostly parental, which debunks plenty of old wives’ tales and urban myths while offering a few surprising truths.

The latest in the brainy and engaging Jeopardy! champion’s series of breezy reads (Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks, 2011, etc.) offers bite-sized chunks

that could be devoured in a couple of hours, though more readers are likely to use it piecemeal, looking for answers to specific questions. As the preface explains, the author “compiled 125 of the nagging Mom-and-Dad-isms that we all grew up with, and then I’ve meticulously researched the scientific evidence behind them.” Meticulously, though not necessarily dryly, as his writing is filled with good humor that is occasionally even a little edgy. Thus, when he refutes “Don’t talk to strangers!” by showing that children are far more at risk of kidnapping and other dangers from someone they know: “The most serious problem with ‘stranger danger’ is that, statistically, it’s completely backward….The only kind of ‘stranger danger’ I’m willing to inflict on my children is a mortal fear of Billy Joel’s 1977 album The Stranger. It’s never too early to instill correct musical taste in your kids.” Readers will learn, if they haven’t guessed already, that you don’t need to wait an hour after eating before swimming, that masturbation will not result in hairy palms, that sitting too close to the TV isn’t all that bad for your eyes and that eating the Christmas poinsettia leaves won’t kill you. (“The truth is that you’re probably safer eating an entire potted poinsettia than you are eating Grandma’s holiday fruitcake.”) But bicyclists should always wear a helmet, and breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.

“Occasionally Mom knew what she was talking about,” as this clever book confirms, but often she did not.

PEPPERMINT TWIST The Mob, the Music, and the Most Famous Dance Club of the ’60s Johnson Jr., John and Selvin, Joel with Cami, Dick Dunne/St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-312-58178-7 978-1-250-01353-8 e-book

True crime meets pop-music history in this history of the Peppermint Lounge, the Twist and the Mafia’s unwitting role in starting a national craze.

In 1960, Dick Cami’s father-in-law, Johnny Biello, a highranking Mafioso, bought an off-Broadway dive as a favor to a friend, and Cami suggested having rock ’n’ roll music in the place. Within months, the Peppermint Lounge became the hottest club in the country, as New Jersey teens mixed with such celebrities as Norman Mailer, Ava Gardner and even the Beatles—all doing the Twist. “The Twist hit like an atomic bomb and the Peppermint Lounge was ground zero,” write veteran journalists Johnson (co-author: Blood Brothers: The Inside Story of the Menendez Murders, 1994) and Selvin (Summer of Love: The Inside Story of LSD, Rock & Roll, Free Love and High Times in the Wild, 1994, etc.). All of this surprised Biello, who saw the place as a nice front for his loan-sharking and gambling rackets. However, not one to pass up a buck, he let Cami make the place legit and even opened a second lounge in Florida. The authors

go back and forth between telling the stories of Biello’s rise in the Mafia and his constant attempts to get out and the rise of the Twist. Biello’s tale is one of Mafia intrigue and Runyonesque figures such as his younger brother Scatsy, while the tale of the Twist is one of the early rise of youth culture, which would soon become a revolution. It’s also the story of a young singer named Chubby Checker, who, once spotted by pop-music king Dick Clark, made a career out of the song “The Twist” (originally recorded by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters) and how every singer from Sam Cooke to Frank Sinatra made a Twist record.

The two stories shouldn’t fit, but they do.

A fun and fascinating read.

WHAT THE PLUS! Google+ for the Rest of Us

Kawasaki, Guy McGraw-Hill (208 pp.) $10.00 paperback | Sep. 14, 2012 978-0-07-181010-4

Blogger and former Apple chief evangelist Kawasaki (Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, 2011, etc.) enthusiastically charts Google’s answer to Facebook and Twitter.

In this bright, comprehensive guide, the author argues that Google+, created by a company with money, talent and proven track record, is the “better social network.” He goes on to tell readers how they can become satisfied users of its “powerful and sophisticated features.” Brimming with tips for optimizing the Google+ experience, the author explains how to get started, find people, search by interests, manage circles (segmented relationships with family, colleagues, etc.) and streams (the flow of posts that you see), and hang out in groups for classes, press conferences and other purposes. In each instance, Kawasaki compares how the Google+ features work in comparison with those of Facebook and Twitter. He notes how Google’s integration of the Google+ social networking features and tools into its existing online services like Search and YouTube will draw many social networkers. Guest authors contribute several chapters—e.g., a photographer with tips on sharing photos—and many sections offer advice applicable to any social networker: how to write an attractive profile, demonstrate trustworthiness, leave a comment, gain more followers and so on, all served up in Kawasaki’s authoritative, winning fashion. In the end, the author finds much more potential for community at Google+ and urges everyone to join for the joy and value. “There are few if any rules,” writes Kawasaki, who spends two hours per day on Google+. “The number one rule is ‘Do what works for you.’ ” A lucid, informal, useful guide from a passionate user.

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“This engrossing wartime narrative offers a fresh look at the European campaign and an intimate sense of then war’s toll on individual participants.” from the liberator

THE LIBERATOR One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

Kershaw, Alex Crown (416 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 30, 2012 978-0-307-88799-3

Well-researched, sprawling account of unforgiving combat in World War II, told with pulpy immediacy.

Kershaw (The Envoy: The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe in the Desperate Closing Months of World War II, 2010, etc.) crafts a dramatic historical narrative from lesser-known aspects of the European campaign by simultaneously focusing on the larger sweep of events and the experiences of one officer, Felix Sparks, whom the author interviewed prior to Sparks’ death in 2007.

Sparks joined the Army as a way out of the Depression and was a lieutenant in the 45th “Thunderbird” Division of the National Guard when war broke out; the intensity of his combat experience was indicated by his rank of colonel at the war’s end.

Sparks and his unit had a grueling wartime record: a year and a half of nearly constant combat, starting with the 1943 invasion of Sicily. Fortunately, Sparks “loved being a rifle company commander”; as the war intensified, he was seen as an officer with the rare combination of combat experience and esprit de corps. Yet multiple calamities befell Sparks and his unit, including the loss of his entire command during Anzio. Later, Sparks faced elite SS troops in harsh winter combat and was among the first American officers to liberate a concentration camp. Kershaw emphasizes the lethal, grinding absurdity of the European theater, which ultimately drove ordinary Americans like Sparks toward feats of bravery and endurance. Although the gruff dialogue and broad canvas of supporting characters can give the book the dramatized feel of a miniseries, it is an appealing addition to the literature of World War II. This engrossing wartime narrative offers a fresh look at the European campaign and an intimate sense of the war’s toll on individual participants. (Two 8-page b/w photo insert; 13 maps)

TRAVELS WITH EPICURUS A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life Klein, Daniel Penguin (176 pp.) $20.00 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-14-312193-0

A late-in-life reflection and modernday philosophical exploration of what it means to age authentically.

Septuagenarian Klein (co-author: Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates, 2009) is on a personal quest to redeem the grizzled and gray-haired among us. Returning 2238 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

to the Greek island of Hydra, which he visited in his youth, he sought to watch and learn from a culture that, he writes, best embodies the grace of old age. Over leisurely glasses of retsina at the local tavern, he observed the “lived time” of his aged, Greek friends and lamented the contemporary Western desire to extend the prime of life beyond its course. What do we lose, he asks, when we deny our hard-earned senior citizenship and opt instead for implants, Viagra and a second career? With the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus as his guide, Klein navigates a veritable sea of great thinkers and their treatises on aging. From Aristotle to Frank Sinatra, each philosopher offers a different take on what it means to live a meaningful life in one’s later years. For Epicureans, it’s a life devoted to simple, enduring pleasures and free of pain, particularly the pain we incur on ourselves by pursuing certain pleasures. As it turns out, there are no specific rules to living life well or to making peace with old age, but Klein suggests that perhaps the act of asking can be “some kind of end in itself.” Some readers, especially younger readers, will reply in the affirmative when Klein wonders aloud if he is simply “a befuddled old geezer barking at the moon.” Others will appreciate the slow, lighthearted amble of his discourse and the wise cast of characters that inhabit his journey.

Charming and accessible, this philosophical survey simply and accessibly makes academic philosophy relevant to ordinary human emotion.

THE EAGLE UNBOWED Poland and the Poles in the Second World War

Kochanski, Halik Harvard Univ. (624 pp.) $35.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-674-06814-8 978-0-674-06816-2 e-book

A much-needed account of Poland’s betrayals at the hands of allies and enemies alike in World War II. A nation long accustomed to being squeezed by its two powerful neighbors, Germany and Russia, Poland’s plight has not been adequately highlighted in more sweeping, general histories of World War II because much of its suffering during the war has been diffused by the allegations of Polish antiSemitism. Royal Historical Society fellow Kochanski, while of Polish descent, is not an apologist of the well-documented persecution of the Jews by ethnic Poles resentful of Jewish prosperity during the 1920s or the willing collaboration of some Poles when the Nazis invaded in 1939. Instead, she fashions a cleareyed, rigorous look at the horrendous toll the Nazi invasion and occupation took, as well as that of the subsequent Soviet opportunistic grab at territory and influence that extended well into the Cold War. After finally gaining a modicum of independence after World War I, with the accommodation of its many minorities, Poland remained poor economically and weak militarily and was powerless to withstand the renewed expansionist plans

of her two hostile neighbors. The country’s worst nightmare came true with the blitzkrieg of September 1939 and the Soviet invasion from the east, ostensibly to protect the Ukrainian and Belorussian minorities; despite British protestations to the contrary, Poland was largely abandoned. Kochanski pursues the deportations of thousands of refugees and prisoners into the Soviet Union and the executions and gassing by the Germans.

The author also unveils the spirited contribution to the Allied war effort by exiled Poles such as in the RAF and intelligence, and she reports extensively on the Warsaw uprising and the end-of-war confusion.

An important study of a long-suffering country that has gained closure from the war only recently. (32 halftones; 5 maps)

MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF

La Force, Thessaly--Ed. Illus. by Mount, Jane Little, Brown (240 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-316-20090-5

An illustrated compendium of first-person musings by writers, artists and other creative types about the books that inspired them and helped shape their identities.

When writer/editor La Force and illustrator Mount decided to put together this delightful collection of essays, it wasn’t simply to express their love of reading and the written word. They sought to make the statement that “in an era when digital technology…threatens irreversibly to change our reading experience, there is nothing that parallels the physical book.” They chose friends, acquaintances and people whom they “admired from afar”—Jonathan Lethem, Jennifer Egan, Alice Waters, Mira Nair and Patti Smith, among others—and asked them to pick the books that most influenced them. La Force pairs each of the

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100 essays she gathered from personal interviews with images Mount painted of the books (specifically, their spines) each participant chose for his or her “ideal bookshelf.” The pieces are as unique as the people they represent and reveal the particular relationships participants have with the texts they mention.

Lethem calls his choices “eccentric,” a reflection of a “decrepit attraction” to old books and the “literary history that lie[s]… waiting to be discovered” in early editions. Chef and restaurateur Alice Waters identifies her bookshelf as commemorating the texts that started her on her epicurean journey. Nair spotlights choices that not only introduced her to English, Urdu and Hindu poetry, but also to the writer who later became her husband. La Force and Mount’s joint efforts do “sentimentaliz[e] the book as object,” but what they achieve clearly demonstrates that, despite the encroachments of computers and the Internet, books still matter. Other contributors include Chuck Klosterman, Dave Eggers, David Sedaris, Michael Chabon and Judd Apatow.

A bibliophilic feast for the eye, mind, heart and soul.

AN EXTRAORDINARY THEORY OF OBJECTS A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris LaCava, Stephanie Illus. by Nelson, Matthew Harper/HarperCollins (224 pp.) $23.99 | Dec. 4, 2012 978-0-06-196389-6

A self-consciously odd coming-ofage memoir in the form of essays about

places and objects.

A fashion writer and blogger, LaCava suffered some sort of depressive breakdown as a teenage American transplanted to France, but the details are sketchy, particularly in comparison with footnotes that often run longer on the page than the main text. “My strength with the written word,” she writes, “is the ability to make unlikely subjects somehow connect, a capacity that has never been my strong suit in life. I had never been patient enough to believe that looking back my sadness would all make sense. But it does now.” To the writer, perhaps, but not necessarily to readers, who may also have trouble appreciating the connections she sees. Much of the memoir concerns her adolescent “boredom verging on insanity, locked inside with my little belongings and endless ruminations.” Then there are the footnotes on the objects that became talismans, such as a skeleton key she found: “Consider the power of the early locksmith: his still was synonymous with security, and knowledge of his craft was hard to come by, as talented locksmiths didn’t want to share their secrets,” she writes by way of preamble to an explanation that runs three times as long. Ultimately, LaCava married (which we learn about in the acknowledgements) and learned from a reunion with a French classmate that he (and presumably others) hadn’t considered her so troubled, that all kids passed through that difficult stage, but she was correct that

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the other girls hadn’t liked her much. “These sorts of conditions never fully go away,” she writes. “I’d presented my childhood as full of whimsy and mystery rather than sadness, so much so that I’d started to believe this version as well.”

There’s a thin line between precocious and overly precious, and this literary debut steps well across it. (40 b/w line illustrations)

HELP, THANKS, WOW The Three Essential Prayers Lamott, Anne Riverhead (112 pp.) $17.95 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-59463-129-0

A refreshingly simple approach to spiritual practice in a pint-sized reflection on prayer.

As the title of her book implies, Lamott (Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son, 2012, etc.) has taken an enormously complex and often debated topic and boiled it down to three basic elements that transcend doctrine or creed. Though in her previous books the author has been forthright about her Christianity, here she begins with a prelude that assures readers she’s not even remotely interested in trying to tell them who or what God is; she’s simply asking them to consider that there’s a Divine Being willing to run the show. How is one to get that process going? Prayer.

More specifically, Lamott touts the spiritual power in powerlessness, gratitude and wonder. The three sections of the book aren’t solely about each one-word prayer; they’re more a running conversation about their collective influence in her life. “Help” is a complete prayer, writes Lamott, and uttering it creates space for solutions that humans have neither thought of nor could pull off on their own. In what at first may seem like a jumbled mashup of stories and reflections, Lamott manages to deftly convey the idea that in trying to control things, we’ve largely lost our ability to see the good and the miraculous in everyday life. And those commodities go a long way, she writes, in terms of making a Divine connection that brings a measure of hope and peace.

Though fans may be dismayed at the brevity of the book, there’s more here than meets the eye.

MY HEART IS BOUNDLESS

LaPlante, Eve--Ed. Free Press (256 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-4767-0280-3

This revealing collection of Abigail May Alcott’s writings provides previously unknown details of the life of a 19thcentury daughter, sister, wife and mother who associated with transcendental

“Lucid and lavishly illustrated—a fine gift for pop and music history buffs” from abbey road

luminaries, suppressed her own dreams to provide for her family, inspired her famous daughter Louisa, and remained an ardent reformer for abolition and women’s rights.

Until now, little has been known of Abigail’s life, since many of her private papers were destroyed after her death. While writing the dual biography, Marmee & Louisa (2012), LaPlante uncovered surviving, untapped pages of Abigail’s journals and letters in archival and private collections, as well as a newly discovered cache of letters detailing May and Alcott family life from the 1830s to the 1870s. In compiling, editing and annotating a sampling of these private letters, poems, journal entries, miscellaneous papers, recipes and remedies, LaPlante, a descendant of the May family, sought to convey the spirit of Abigail’s writings. Organized chronologically, the writings are grouped by early years, courtship and marriage, motherhood, early middle life, employment, late middle age and old age. They trace Abigail’s evolution from a sickly, youngest child of seven, to a serious young scholar eschewing marriage, to a struggling wife and mother forced to support her family for decades, to a middle-age social worker and early advocate of women’s suffrage, to an aging grandmother. Abigail’s diaries and letters disclose an intelligent, self-sacrificing, tender woman whose moral conviction and strong character kept her engaged in social issues despite her tragic marriage. Each document includes the date and place of composition as well as footnotes for references unfamiliar to contemporary readers. Helpful annotations and a chronology provide further contextual detail.

A compelling documentary portrait of the real Marmee, whose life provided the impetus for Little Women and who emerges here as a noteworthy woman in her own right.

ABBEY ROAD The Best Studio in the World Lawrence, Alistair Bloomsbury (304 pp.) $75.00 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-1608199990

Appropriately ambitious biography of the recording studio that gave the world the Beatles’ eponymous swan song—but also, lest it be forgotten, the works of Helen Shapiro and Vanessa-Mae. Helen and Vanessa who? It helps to be a music geek, if not of a certain age, to appreciate the depths of BBC music critic Lawrence’s history of Abbey Road studios, which has been online for nearly nine decades now. For those who are not such geeks, then the basic bits of essential knowledge, all to be found in his pages, are these: The studio was built in the heart of St. John’s Wood, “London’s first garden suburb,” in a refitted Georgian mansion, and in those august surroundings, was inaugurated under the baton of none other than Edward Elgar, he of “Pomp and Circumstance” fame. It was also a sonic laboratory, a place to test not only gear to help King George VI work through his stutter (the stuff of the hit movie The King’s Speech), but also the stereophonic, aurally deceptive goodies that would be put to use in the psychedelic era under the tutelage of good Sir George Martin. Before all

that, though, Abbey Road had to make the transition from stuffy classical facility to pop wonderland. If you knew that the first pop hit to emerge from Abbey Road was “Cowpuncher’s Cantata” in 1952, then you will not need or profit from Lawrence’s considerable labors, but if you did not—or did not know that Pink Floyd, Radiohead and even Mel Gibson recorded here—then this book is certainly worthy of time and exploration. One might quibble with some of his assessments (Was Jeff Beck’s Truth really a forerunner of metal? Were the Hollies really just another cover band?), but Lawrence makes up for it with plenty of fine factual writing, especially on the technological side.

Lucid and lavishly illustrated—a fine gift for pop and music history buffs.

THE TRUE HISTORY OF MERLIN THE MAGICIAN

Lawrence-Mathers, Ann Yale Univ. (256 pp.) $40.00 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-300-14489-5

A finely hewn portrait of the wizard Merlin from the 12th to the 16th centuries, when, in the eyes of the times, he was very much a real historical personage.

In the early years of the 12th century, Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote a book known as the History of the Kings of Britain. It was a hoax, but it was a book very much of its time, a huge best-seller, writes Lawrence-Mathers (Medieval History/Univ. of Reading) in this deeply satisfying survey of the famed magician. The author discusses Geoffrey and the other contemporary or near-contemporary historians at work, and she notes that one of the things that gave Geoffrey’s book such instant popularity was the fact that the emerging political entity known as Britain needed a history with substance, lineage and heroes, something to shore up its many dynastic insecurities. Merlin was just the man to deliver: an omniscient magician yet fallible and vulnerable, reader of the stars and the flights of birds, and, most of all, a prophet. Yet Merlin was a figment of Geoffrey’s imagination. He was not a figure at court, but arrived when needed; there is no intimation he was bedecked in pointed cap and astrological robes, but lived simply in near hermitlike circumstances deep in the woods. Thanks to Geoffrey’s book, Merlin became a fixture in the popular, theological, political and romantic imagination.

He was the right man in the right place, and other historians tapped into his popularity to buttress their work; his deeds didn’t stop with Geoffrey, but were embellished for another 400 years.

Out of Merlin and his many gifts and prophesies, Geoffrey et al. made a history of a place, and there also emerged a dangerous theological and political edge comprised of fusing the magical tradition of the ancient world, the early Christian Church and the Celtic past. Lawrence-Mathers nimbly brings readers into the Middle Ages, during which most people believed in prophecy and magic as real, active things, when the Merlins of the world surely walked the land and saw what most did not.

Sharp and enchanting. | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2241

BEING SANTA CLAUS What I Learned About the True Meaning of Christmas Lizard, Sal with Lane, Jonathan Gotham Books (208 pp.) $20.00 | Dec. 1, 2012 978-1-592-40756-9

Pleasantly amusing and tender stories of holiday cheer from the man in the red suit.

When Lizard agreed to don a Santa suit one Christmas for a local radio station and hand out toys to impoverished children, little did he realize that he had stepped into a role practically made for him. Having a natural white beard and hair helped with the role, but once he put on “the suit,” he found that people of all ages just seemed to become “more generous, openhearted, and happy.” With Lane’s assistance, Lizard writes a humorous account of some of the memories accrued from two decades of playing Santa. That first season with the radio station led to more public appearances, some in malls and some in hospitals, where Lizard had to learn to shut down his own emotions and truly play the role of St. Nick, despite the ache he felt at seeing so many sick children. One small boy in particular left a deep scar, which the author has not been able to forget. Private gigs in homes where children tried to stump Santa with questions, such as why he used a shopping bag from the local store to carry his presents or why a child did not receive the requested BB gun, left Lizard scrambling for answers. As the years progressed, he found himself embodying the spirit of Santa year-round, which led to healthy lifestyle changes and embracing the spirit of Christmas, which, to Lizard, “happens anytime someone reaches out to another with love; when someone gives just for the sake of helping another fellow human being; when a child’s eyes light up with the wonder of believing in miracles.”

Simple stories that remind readers there is more to Christmas than the stress of shopping, partying and striving to make everything perfect.

THE BIRD THAT SWALLOWED ITS CAGE The Selected Writings of Curzio Malaparte Malaparte, Curzio Translated by Murch, Walter Counterpoint (144 pp.) $24.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-61902-061-0

Unusual, engaging literary synthesis from a renowned film artisan and his private obsession, an Italian writer and political radical largely unknown in America.

Academy Award–winning editor and sound designer Murch (In the Blink of an Eye, 2001) notes that his initial encounter with the prose of Curzio Malaparte (1898–1957) “was like falling into 2242 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

a dream—or nightmare—tenuously balanced on the tightrope between real and surreal.” Malaparte, a soldier in both World Wars and a volatile political thinker, was both the youngest diplomat in Italian history and an early fascist who ran afoul of Mussolini. Murch suggests that “the problematic contradictions and collisions of Malaparte’s life seem like a sped-up film of the first half of the twentieth century”; he determined to bring the enigmatic author’s work to an English audience following his experiences working on the adaptation of The English Patient. An unusual aspect of the project is his decision to present some of the prose translation in “short lines of free verse... allowing it to breathe and permitting his startling images to be savored in a more measured way.” As Murch asserts, Malaparte’s writing is indeed dramatic and affecting, reminiscent of Camus’ social alienation and the amused misanthropy of Mencken, but with the pinpoint precision of fine wartime reportage and poetic engagement with natural landscapes beset by brutality.

Overall, Malaparte’s stories derive from his personal observations in politics and combat, as in the chilling “The Gun Gone Mad,” which bears witness to the Nazi bombardment of civilian Belgrade through the eyes of a diplomat’s terrified hunting dog.

Sparkling prose drives a fascinating snapshot of a literary life buffeted by the great conflicts of his time.

NOTES TO THE FUTURE Words of Wisdom

Mandela, Nelson Atria (208 pp.) $20.00 | $9.99 e-book | Nov. 20, 2012 978-1-4516-7539-9 978-1-4516-7541-2 e-book A stirring collection of quotes from the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Spanning several decades, this series of quotes from Mandela (Conversations with Myself, 2010, etc.) offers readers a compendium of wisdom reduced to bite-size nuggets. Pulled from personal letters to his wife, conversations with important world leaders, segments of speeches given at various official functions, notes from Long Walk to Freedom and other sources, these quotes give insight into the ever-hopeful mind of Mandela. Regardless of his own struggles, which included nearly three decades in prison, he continued to look upward and outward for his South Africa, believing that in the end, good would prevail. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion,” he writes. “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Divided into four segments—struggle, victory, wisdom, and future—the book shows in brief the evolution of thinking this man confronted before, during and after his term in prison and into his “retirement.” Although more background information on the man himself would be useful to those not familiar with Mandela’s story, the quotes are inspirational and moving, regardless of any prior knowledge. An emotive introduction by Archbishop Desmond Tutu elaborates on the book, as he writes

“Even though we know the answers to most of the questions...this book makes getting to them a treat.” from hello, gorgeous

that the quotes are “like a visit with our most eminent global elder, who generously offers his wisdom for all to learn.” The full script of Mandela’s Nobel acceptance speech from 1993 rounds out this brief yet important look into the mind of a man determined to break apartheid regardless of the personal cost.

Obviously limited in its format, but these motivating quotes bring together the rousing thoughts of a global leader.

HELLO, GORGEOUS Becoming Barbra Streisand

Mann, William J. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (592 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 9, 2012 978-0-547-36892-4 Hollywood chronicler Mann (How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, 2010, etc.) divulges the blood, sweat and tears that propelled a diva’s

BUDDY How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man

McGrory, Brian Crown (240 pp.) $24.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-307-95306-3 978-0-307-95308-7 e-book

The story of a newspaper columnist who got a second shot at love and happiness in the suburbs—only a crazed rooster named Buddy stood in his way.

Just a few years back, Boston Globe associate editor McGrory experienced the failure of his first marriage and the death of his beloved dog Harry. His professional career was still thriving, but the successful journalist knew it was time for a change.

Remarkably, that change came with a person he had already known for years: Pam, Harry’s veterinarian. Of all the challenges the couple contemplated after deciding to get married

rise to stardom.

Barbra Streisand is such a cultural institution that it sometimes seems as if she sprang fully grown from the head of the entertainment industry. Not so, argues the author in this surprisingly suspenseful and masterfully paced biography. Covering the fundamental years from 1960 to 1964, he shines the spotlight on an awkward yet ambitious teenage girl who aspired to play grand theatrical roles. To Streisand, singing came so easily that she didn’t regard it as work, and she practically had to be pushed into appearing at Greenwich Village nightclubs. When a friend suggested that she approach singing a song as if acting a part in a play, however, she made a creative breakthrough that led to appearances on TV talk shows, a Broadway role in I Can Get It for You Wholesale and a recording contract at Columbia Records. Streisand didn’t accomplish this alone, and Mann appropriately gives credit to the agents, accompanists, directors and mentors who brought her idiosyncratic style to a generation hungry for new idols. He also delves into her paradoxical mixture of self-confidence and -doubt, disclosing that she privately felt insecure about her looks despite publicly flaunting an outlandish flair for fashion and a loopy sense of humor. Mann structures the book by seasons, further dividing these into a series of vignettes that read like scenes from a novel peopled with extraordinary characters.

Even though we know the answers to most of the questions—Will our heroine win the coveted role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl? Will she live happily ever after with her Prince Charming, Elliott Gould?—this book makes getting to them a treat. (16-page and 8-page b/w inserts)

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2243

“Alan Moore at his Mooriest: inscrutable yet compelling.” from unearthing

and move to the suburbs, the last thing they imagined was a vengeful pet chicken. With suitable exasperation, McGrory recounts the incessant crowing, ambushes in the yard and nonstop defecation. This is an oddly morose memoir filled with as much sadness as joy. Harry’s ghost hangs heavy over everything, as the author’s strange preoccupation with loss—even as he stands to gain so much—ultimately proves frustrating. Even the almighty Buddy is something of a disappointment, little more than a feathered neurotic lashing out at a perilous world he sees as unremittingly threatening. Readers who adore their pets will no doubt identify with the profundity of losing a cherished animal, but the unrelenting somberness juxtaposed with the occasionally silly moment make for an uneven narrative.

An unexpectedly melancholy meditation on marriage, mortality and the merits of living in suburbia.

UNEARTHING

Moore, Alan; Jenkins, Mitch Top Shelf Productions (184 pp.) $74.95 | paper $29.95 | Dec. 12, 2012 978-1-60309-150-3 978-1-60309-151-0 paperback A comic-book legend and an acclaimed photographer team up to present a visceral biographical sketch of author and occultist Steve Moore.

Alan Moore (Voice of the Fire, 2009, etc.), whose brilliant oeuvre includes Watchmen, From Hell, and V for Vendetta, has always had a penchant for using the visual medium of graphic literature in unique and innovative ways, a tradition he continues with the aid of esteemed photographer Jenkins in this bizarre but oddly engrossing biography/historical vignette, which originally appeared as solely text in Iain Sinclair’s anthology London: City of Disappearances (2008). A longtime friend (and sometimes mentor) of Alan Moore’s, Steve Moore (no relation) has lived his entire life in the same London house in which he was born, and it is through the lens of his life that Alan Moore presents the history of the neighborhood, Shooter’s Hill. From a Julius Caesar sortie in 55 B.C. to the bandit hordes of the 17th century to the cascade of Nazi bombs during World War II, Alan Moore juxtaposes the area’s history with Steve Moore’s development, from his awkward youth to his discovery of the I Ching to his various scholarly and authorial endeavors, which included forays into the U.K. comic-book scene and a fascination with the occult. Accompanying the narrative, which traverses freely between factual reality and bursts of mystical rhetoric and trippy dreamscapes, is a series of images that range from poignant (the grim, sepia-toned picture of Luftwaffe planes in the London sky) to bizarre (the bloody, severed head of a pig). Alan Moore has always walked a fine line between creating brilliant stories that expand the boundaries of his chosen medium to draw in an audience far larger than comicbook aficionados and presenting head-scratching mind screws that might be better appreciated in an altered state of reality.

This is more an example of the latter.

Alan Moore at his Mooriest: inscrutable yet compelling.

2244 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

(Hardcover edition limited to 1,200 copies worldwide; 300 signed and numbered hardcover copies available through publisher website for $99)

THIS LIVING HAND And Other Essays

Morris, Edmund Random House (512 pp.) $32.00 | Oct. 23, 2012 978-0-8129-9312-7 978-0-679-64466-8 e-book

A sterling collection of essays from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner.

Arranged chronologically rather than thematically, in “what amounts to a scrapbook of one man’s literary life,” the book ranges widely in tone from the serious to the satirical. Several of the works have yet to be published, and a few have been revised or expanded. Morris (Colonel Roosevelt, 2010, etc.), who writes that he is haunted by visual images, occasionally pairs a pertinent illustration with an essay and when necessary, inserts a footnote to clarify an obsolete reference. “Outside of literature in general and biography in particular,” he writes, “my non-book work has consisted mainly of commentary on the presidency and writings about classical music.” Morris begins with a 1972 essay, “The Bumstich: Lament for a Forgotten Fruit,” in which he recounts his time as a schoolboy in Kenya. The author concludes with “The Ivo Pogorelich of Presidential Biography,” an exploration of the process of writing Dutch (1999), his controversial book about Ronald Reagan. This last essay is an updated revision of three seminars the author gave while serving as a writer in residence at the University of Chicago in 2003. In other pieces, Morris laments the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro; probes the psyche of South African writer Nadine Gordimer; explains his passion for writing biographies; narrates his tour through Britain’s Imperial War Museum; and bemoans the loss of the physical pleasure of writing with pen and ink or typewriter. “Parker man or Remington man,” he writes, “one felt a closeness to the finished product that the glass screen of a computer display now coldly precludes.”

A splendid assemblage of significant work by one of our keenest observers.

CONSTANCE The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde Moyle, Franny Pegasus (336 pp.) $27.95 | Dec. 15, 2012 978-1-60598-381-3

The little-known Constance Lloyd Wilde had some years of surpassing happiness with her gifted, controversial husband before scandal overwhelmed.

Former BBC arts producer Moyle (Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites, 2009) has a difficult task: keeping the focus on Constance when Oscar’s flamboyance, fame and flameout are so riveting. Mostly, she succeeds. The author begins in 1895 at a moment of great success and crisis: Oscar had two hits in the West End, but the scandal of his homosexuality was erupting, which would send him to prison for two years, destroy his reputation and career, and send his wife and two sons into exile to the continent, where they changed their surnames to Holland.

After this emotional “teaser” of an opening, Moyle returns to tell the stories of her principals. Constance, whose wealthy father died when she was still a teen, suffered from her mother’s verbal and physical abuse. Nonetheless, she emerged as a bright, attractive, talented young woman whom Oscar met via her brother.

Oscar, Moyle reminds us, had already lost one young woman—to Bram Stoker. Moyle carefully charts their courtship, marriage and parenthood. Initially, the Wildes were popular in society and helped each other in their work. Oscar was practicing journalism and writing poetry; Constance was involved in various women’s causes and wrote stories and essays. All looked well. Then…Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Oscar’s sexual passion for him consumed them all. Moyle shows us a bright, trusting woman who remained devoted even in some of the darkest hours.

Juicy literary history. The Wildes’ stories would have silenced the Prince in Romeo and Juliet, who said there “never was a story of more woe.” (16 pages of b/w photographs)

MICK JAGGER

Norman, Philip Ecco/HarperCollins (640 pp.) $34.99 | $16.99 e-book | Lg. Prt. $34.99 CD $24.99 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-06-194485-7 978-0-06-220032-7 e-book 978-0-06-220153-9 Lg. Prt. 978-0-06-220493-6 CD The second, livelier and all-around better of two major unauthorized Jagger biographies (after Christopher Andersen’s Mick) out in time for the Rolling Stones’ 50th year.

A British novelist, music journalist and biographer, Norman (John Lennon: The Life, 2008, etc.) has made a minicareer telling the stories of the two biggest bands in rock history, the Beatles

and the Stones, in several big books. (In his introduction to this mostly sympathetic life, Norman writes, plausibly, that these two bands “constitute one single, epic story.”) Whereas Andersen portrayed Sir Mick as a soulless Narcissus or Faust, Norman succeeds at least partly in getting to the middle-class, suburban man behind the myth; he offers a sort of retort to Keith Richards’ Life (as well as most other Jagger biographies) in shining a slightly better light on his subject. The author convincingly debunks legends like the kinky Mars bar tableau at the Redlands drug arrest in 1967 or Jagger’s coldblooded dismissal of Hells Angel violence at the Altamont festival in 1969. Without shying from uncomplimentary facts about his subject’s worst behaviors—mainly his treatment of the “lesser” Stones Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts and his numerous infidelities—Norman consistently provides evidence of Jagger’s better side: his bouts of generosity (particularly toward friends and lovers in need), the sensitivity that frequently drives him to tears, his mutual adoration of his children by several mothers. Tellingly, the 25 years since the Stones’ silver anniversary in 1982 are compressed into the last 90 pages of the 600-page narrative—even Norman seems to lose interest in Jagger apart from the Stones.

Not the definitive Jagger life, but an enjoyable, entertaining biography. (Two 16-page photo inserts. First printing of 150,000)

DOG COMPANY The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc—the Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day’s Toughest Mission and Led the Way Across Europe O’Donnell, Patrick Da Capo/Perseus (288 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 11, 2012 978-0-306-82029-8

Inspiring story of the Army’s 2nd Ranger Battalion, Company D (“Dog Company”), from battle historian O’Donnell (Give Me Tomorrow: The Korean War’s Greatest Untold Story 2010, etc.).

The 200-plus volunteers who made up the initial complement of Dog Company assembled at Fort Meade in March 1943. The author has worked with veterans of the unit—e.g., the late Len Lomell and other “great Ranger friends”—to trace survivors and organize their stories and memories into the Drop Zone Oral History Project, which provides one of the sources for this book. The soldiers were trained to assault and capture high points from the sea, and the cliffs and heavy gun emplacements at Pointe du Hoc were their target from the beginning. The assignment was considered to be “a suicide mission,” and top officials “projected casualties would top 70 percent.” O’Donnell engagingly describes how a dedicated team was built out of the specialist training it received, but he is at his best presenting the fortunes and shocks of battle as the months of planning and training were blown away in a series of mischances that also fortuitously | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2245

“Since bin Laden was a significant figure, historians will consult this book as a primary source; they, as well as most general readers, will not regret it.” from no easy day

safeguarded the unit from delayed pre-invasion bombing runs. The author also highlights the courage of Ranger Lt. Bob Edlin and his three companions, who organized “the unbelievably audacious bluff ” that secured the surrender of the German garrison of the Lochrist Gun Battery at Brest in August 1944.

A worthy tribute honoring each member of a small group of volunteers who responded to the call of duty.

NO EASY DAY The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden Owen, Mark with Maurer, Kevin Dutton (320 pp.) $26.95 | Sep. 4, 2012 978-0-525-95372-2

Books on Navy SEALs have poured off the presses for years, but this one has generated national interest and controversy for a reason the title makes clear.

Sensibly, the author (a pseudonym of ex-SEAL Matt Bissonnette) works with military journalist Maurer (Gentlemen Bastards: On the Ground in Afghanistan with America’s Elite Special Forces, 2012, etc.), and the result is a fast-paced, professional narrative that will appeal to military buffs as well as general readers. Raised in rural Alaska, Owen yearned to be a SEAL from childhood. He succeeded in 1998, passing the brutal screening and training. After several deployments, he passed another screening to join the SEAL’s specialized antiterrorism unit in 2004. This is a mostly traditional SEAL memoir filled with nuts-and-bolts descriptions of weapons, gear, training, tactics and short, nasty battles in which (unlike the movies) plenty goes wrong, but (like the movies) many bad guys pay the price. The book’s second half delivers a precisely detailed, vivid account of the Osama bin Laden mission. Luck, good and bad, plays an essential role in any raid. One attacking helicopter crashed, but the veteran team worked around the mishap. On the bright side, the Pakistani hideout was feebly defended. The author does not deny that the SEALs shot every male on sight, bin Laden included.

Since bin Laden was a significant figure, historians will consult this book as a primary source; they, as well as most general readers, will not regret it.

2246 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

YOU TELL YOUR DOG FIRST Pace, Alison Berkley (256 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-425-25587-2

A popular writer whose fiction often features dogs (A Pug’s Tale, 2011, etc.) lets fans in on the events in her life that served as inspiration.

Pace’s 2008 novel City Dog starred her beloved Carlie, a West Highland white terrier who is also pictured on the cover of this memoir.

When she was 29, a confirmed New Yorker with two published novels under her belt, the author decided that, while she would like to find the man of her dreams, what she wanted most was a dog to share her life. Coming from a suburban home in Long Island filled with canines, this was not too surprising. Her family was so seriously into dogs, she writes, that when they gathered for holidays, the stories they would share were all about their pets; she still dates major events by which dogs they had at any given time. A feature writer with an advance on a third novel, she was working from home and able to care for a dog even in a city apartment. The first hurdle was finding a rental apartment that accepted pets, near enough to Central Park for dog-walking. That done, Pace settled on a 13-month-old Westie trained to be a show dog but disqualified by bow legs. Carlie quickly became the center of her besotted new owner’s life. The author shares her experiences accustoming a nervous pet to city living, taking her along to social events and vetting prospective suitors based on how they hit it off with Carlie. Stranger-thanfiction moments include the discovery that another neighborhood Westie and Carlie were half siblings and the author’s encounter in the park with a fellow Westie owner who became her therapist.

A charming memoir about the special joys of having a pet and the ups and downs of single living.

MEMOIR OF THE SUNDAY BRUNCH

Pandl, Julie Algonquin (246 pp.) $13.95 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-61620-172-2

Pandl’s memoir recounts her Midwestern childhood and the behind-thescenes action of her family’s restaurant.

The youngest of nine, the author and her siblings grew up working in their Catholic family’s Milwaukee restaurant under the supervision of their father, the chef. Pandl’s tenderhearted, humorous debut explores her childhood memories, at home and in the kitchen, and her relationships with both of her parents, particularly that with her eccentric, ferociously hardworking father, George.

After he caught the 12-year-old Pandl on the couch in her

pajamas one summer afternoon, he put her to work. Her first job involved “doing pancakes” during the restaurant’s brunch service, and she rose to the task with hilarious results. The majority of her stories reflect the loving, chaotic atmosphere of her family, both in and out of the restaurant kitchen, but Pandl doesn’t sugarcoat the darker ones with unnecessary sentimentality. Instead, she relies on humor to keep her vignettes engaging. “The few baby pictures that exist were all taken on the same day,” she writes, “as if someone said, ‘Let’s get a few pictures, just in case she’s kidnapped.’ ” In her 20s, Pandl watched her father “retire and unretire” more than a dozen times, continuing the work he had done his entire career even as his efforts grew less and less appreciated. She describes her parents’ deaths with astonishing, plain honesty, and discusses the myriad ways, good and bad, in which they live on in herself and her siblings.

Sweet, simple and often funny.

1775 A Good Year for Revolution

Phillips, Kevin Viking (640 pp.) $36.00 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-670-02512-1 A noted historian and political commentator claims 1775 as the American Revolution’s true beginning.

It will probably take more than this deeply researched, meticulously argued, multidimensional history to dislodge 1776 from the popular mind as the inaugural year of our independence, but Phillips (Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, 2008, etc.) makes the persuasive case—as Jefferson insisted long ago—that a de facto independence existed well before the Declaration of Independence. It wasn’t merely a matter of military skirmishes, raids, expeditions and battles that bloodied the year, but also of campaigns opened on other, critical fronts: the ousting of numerous royal governors and lesser officials from office; the takeover of local militias and the establishment of committees, associations and congresses to take up the business of self-government; the desperate scramble for gunpowder and munitions to prosecute the war; and the courting of European powers happy to see Britain weakened. In all these fights during 1775, the colonists made crucial advances, both material and psychological, from which the plodding British never quite recovered. Highlighting, especially, developments in the “vanguard” colonies of Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut and South Carolina, where the concentration of wealth, population and leadership accounted for an outsized influence, Phillips explores the ethnic, religious, demographic, political and economic roots of the revolution. He examines the differing class interests (including those of slaves and Native Americans), regional preoccupations and various ideologies, sometimes clashing, sometimes aligning, that contributed to the revolutionary fervor and reminds us how much sorting out was

necessary to prepare the national mind for the new order that the Declaration merely ratified. Casual readers may find Phillips’ treatment a bit daunting, but serious history students will revel in the overwhelming detail he marshals to make his convincing argument.

Impressively authoritative.

MANKIND BEYOND EARTH The History, Science, and Future of Human Space Exploration

Piantadosi, Claude A. Columbia Univ. (336 pp.) $35.00 | $27.99 e-book | Jan. 1, 2013 978-0-231-16242-5 978-0-231-53103-0 e-book

The director of Duke University’s Environmental Laboratory offers an exciting evaluation of the potential for colonizing Mars by the end of the century.

Piantadosi (The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in Extreme Environments, 2003) reviews the history of the space program, with special emphasis on the biological challenges of human space exploration in a zero-gravity environment. In his view, establishing a manned moon base is a critical first step. “To get to Mars,” he writes, “astronauts must function in deep space for years and will face huge challenges in doing so.” While the moon is readily accessible, a population living on Mars would face the significant constraints imposed by distance and orbital mechanics. A Mars-based society would need to be self-sufficient, with fail-safe life-support systems in place (even a temporary loss of power would be catastrophic.) Further, colonists on the moon or Mars would face increased exposure to cosmic radiation, the loss of bone and muscle density, and possible challenges to their cardiovascular and immune systems.

Despite the lower cost and reduced risk of the unmanned space program, Piantadosi believes that America (“the unquestioned leader in space since Project Apollo”) should also maintain its commitment to manned space exploration in order to keep its technological edge. While robots on the moon are already gathering important scientific information, only humans have the flexibility and imagination to allow scientists to pursue the unexpected. The author also considers the prospect of going beyond Mars to colonize the outer planets and beyond in the foreseeable future. He puts forth the lesson that the difficulties involved offer “the best incentives we have to take the best possible care of Spaceship Earth.”

An important book by a visionary with his feet planted on the ground.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2247

“Rigorous account of a slave-ship rebellion that altered American and African societies.” from the amistad rebellion

MATHEMATICS MINUS FEAR How to Make Math Fun and Beneficial to Your Everyday Life

Potter, Lawrence Pegasus (288 pp.) $24.95 | Nov. 15, 2012 978-1-60598-376-9

Potter (This May Help You Understand the World, 2008) accessibly deconstructs simple math.

This Oxford graduate in classics, who has taught math in Rwanda and Romania, confesses that he had a problem doing sums in his head. That started him on his pursuit of an explanation of why so many people fear math or despair of doing even simple arithmetic. The result is a patient and gentle dissection of the rules: how and why they work; carefully worked-out examples; simple tricks to make mental calculations easier; and ample do-it-yourself problems, helpfully explicated in an appendix. True, most readers could do without the corny stereotypes: the classroom with the obnoxiously bright Bernadette versus the hopelessly disorganized Charlie (who never does get the message). But Potter rationalizes the rules with his artful use of visuals, numerical tables, squares or rectangles with grid lines to depict fractions and ways to cope with them. While most of the book deals with arithmetic, later chapters explore elementary algebra and probability theory, again demonstrating the logic of the rules. Throughout, Potter takes time to digress into math history, including brief sketches of principal thinkers, and he offers plenty of practical advice: He explains why your best bet at the roulette table is to lay down your chips on the first round and then leave the table, whether you’ve won or lost.

Harried schoolteacher? Worried parent? Self-defined math klutz? All could profit from the text, but there is enough sophistication and wry humor in Potter’s approach to appeal to more savvy readers of any age.

BEYOND HUMAN NATURE How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind

Prinz, Jesse Norton (416 pp.) $29.95 | Nov. 19, 2012 978-0-393-06175-8

Cognitive Science editorial board member Prinz (Philosophy/City Univ. of New York; The Emotional Construction of Morals, 2008, etc.) tackles an age-old debate, making an argument for “the primacy of nurture over nature.”

The question has been endlessly debated: How much of man’s behavior is innate and genetically determined, and how much is affected by environment and experience? Thinkers who study such matters, including psychologists and philosophers, largely fall somewhere in the middle: “Between the 2248 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

poles of nature and nurture, there is a vast spectrum of possible positions,” writes the author. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still lively debate, and Prinz makes clear that he stands on the far end of the nurturist side of the spectrum. Much as cognitive scientist Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate (2002) presented a sweeping naturist viewpoint, Prinz makes arguments in favor of “a fairly thoroughgoing nurturism.” He seeks to dismantle the widely held notion that language, personality traits, moral values and other complex aspects of human behavior are determined largely by biology. Taking issue with the concept of genetic determinism, he stresses that environmental factors play a much bigger role in, for example, alcoholic behavior or IQ scores, than genes do. Throughout, he cites numerous studies and colorful examples to support his views. While Prinz’s passion for his subject is evident, and his positions well-researched, his prose can be a bit dry and repetitive at times. However, he presents some compelling arguments, and he is unafraid to take on popular beliefs to make his points—as when he challenges the idea of an innate human capacity for learning language or argues that depression has a large cultural component.

A spirited nurturist polemic.

THE AMISTAD REBELLION An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom

Rediker, Marcus Viking (304 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 8, 2012 978-0-670-02504-6

Rigorous account of a slave-ship rebellion that altered American and African societies.

In The Slave Ship (2007), Rediker (History/Univ. of Pittsburgh) provided a macro view of the ugly business of transporting slaves. Here, he examines what happened on one ship, the Amistad. The 1839 rebellion on the Amistad was one of the few successful uprisings while a slave ship was under sail. The story unfolds from the bottom up, as Rediker pieces together the lives of several dozen men and women forcibly captured in what is now Sierra Leone. Other books about the rebellion focus on what occurred after the slaves broke their shackles and committed high-seas murder (off the coast of Cuba) before eventually being arrested near Long Island, N.Y. The jailing of the slaves and legal proceedings constituted the obvious, easy story to tell. Rediker, however, dug deeply to document the personal histories of the rebellious slaves. When captured, none of the slaves could speak or understand the English language. A lengthy search in the United States for an interpreter broke the logjam to some extent, allowing at least a partial narrative to be written during the 1840s and in later generations. Rediker does not ignore the Supreme Court decision in the convoluted case of international law as applied to murder on the high seas; the decision, given the biased backgrounds of quite a few Supreme

Court justices, seemed almost miraculous at the time, and the slaves headed home to Sierra Leone.

A first-rate example of history told from the bottom up.

WIND WIZARD Alan G. Davenport and the Art of Wind Engineering Roberts, Siobhan Princeton Univ. (288 pp.) $29.95 | Dec. 1, 2012 978-0-691-15153-3

A richly drawn portrait of Alan Davenport (1932–2009), the maestro of “balancing the wind’s fickle forces.”

Davenport was not just a wind engineer, writes freelance science journalist Roberts (King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry, 2006); “he set the agenda for investigating the effects of wind on the natural and built environments,” chiefly through his path-breaking dedicated boundary layer wind tunnel. The tunnel measures the effects of wind from the earth’s surface to 3,000 feet in altitude, where it is at its most turbulent, churning in eddies, or, as Roberts puts it, “marbled striations of air.” This is only one example of the author’s lovely way with words, her artful ability to give the mind’s eye entry into difficult scientific terrain. She is at ease writing pure popular science—how Davenport put his wind tunnel to use to help understand sail design or the winds at Augusta National Golf Club’s famous 12th hole—as well as the dark matter of wind correlation and buffeting theory. There is a fine introduction to the history of wind theory and limpid explanations of such phenomena as viscosity, before Roberts goes on to detail a number of Davenport’s more famous projects, such as the World Trade Center, the Sears Tower, Shanghai’s World Financial Center, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge and Florida’s Sunshine Skyway. A final chapter testifies to Davenport’s forward thinking as he tackled disaster mitigation, again with his wind tunnel, using models of local topography to avoid obvious landscape traps in the event of natural disasters.

A winning, enlightening investigation into wind engineering and the man who made the airwaves speak. (95 halftones; 16 line illustrations)

DOGS OF COURAGE The Heroism and Heart of Working Dogs Around the World Rogak, Lisa St. Martin’s Griffin (288 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-250-02176-2

A celebration of the many ways service dogs help humans.

“Dogs of courage,” as defined by Rogak (And Nothing But the Truthiness: The Rise (and Further Rise) of Stephen Colbert, 2011, etc.), are not unique in that they possess courage—all dogs, she asserts, are born with it—but humans have the ability to draw out this courage in ways that benefit both the dogs and the people working with them. The author gives a broad overview of dogs in service today, as well as the history of dogs providing support in a myriad of settings. She profiles guide and assistance dogs, fire and police dogs, medical research-assistant canines, wildlife and conservation dogs and therapy dogs. Training programs were instituted when World War I began, and dogs have served in the military since. As Rogak notes, there is overlap between the different types of service dogs and the skills that are called upon; the benefits that therapy dogs provide through steadfast companionship and support offer a form of therapy to anyone working closely with them. There are also distinctly different training requirements for different types of service. A dog trained in providing therapy support, particularly when the service is being provided to children, must acquiesce to having their ears and tails tugged on by little hands, whereas a police dog by necessity requires sharper self-preservation instincts.

Rogak also shares brief profiles of specific dogs working in the various service arenas.

Will give dog enthusiasts plenty of reinforcement for the assertion that dogs are man’s best friend. (10 b/w photographs and two 8-page color photo inserts)

LUCK OR SOMETHING LIKE IT

Rogers, Kenny Morrow/HarperCollins (304 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-06-207181-1

Unassuming memoir by one-time chartbuster Rogers, he of “The Gambler” fame.

The author’s approach to memoir writing is consonant with his approach to song crafting and chicken making: crowd-pleasing, unchallenging and resolutely middle-ofthe-road. Some might call it bland, but it’s calculated not to offend. A child of hardscrabble East Texas, Rogers doesn’t dig too deeply to find the well of the past; “I can’t say for sure,” he writes, “but I just took it for granted that I was part Irish, part Indian, and that was that.” A talent for singing and playing guitar brought him early into professional music, and he got his first hit with a psychedelic-lite version of Mickey Newbury’s “Just Dropped In,” refreshed on the hip-o-meter when given a standout moment in The Big Lebowski. Though shot through with show-business anecdotes, Rogers’ narrative doesn’t dish much dirt; when he tells a joke, refreshingly, it’s most often about himself, as when he mangled an expensive amplifier early on in his career: “We didn’t have the heart to confess how truly stupid Mickey [Jones] and I were, so we did the next most honorable thing. We blamed the airlines.” Neither does Rogers dig too hard into the touchier parts of his past, mentioning numerous | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2249

“Casual readers will find plenty to like about this excellent collection, but journalism and philosophy students should find it especially stimulating.” from lost at sea

ex-wives only in passing. The refrain, “What in the world were you thinking, Kenneth Ray?” runs throughout, but rarely does he stop to really turn the question over—though he does let us know why he never cozied up to drugs, for which, and for all the general mayhem that Rogers doesn’t chronicle, please consult Keith Richards’ Life.

“The audience expects to be entertained 100 percent for their ticket dollar,” Rogers writes. This doesn’t really hit that 100 percent mark, but it’s a light and pleasant read all the same.

LOST AT SEA The Jon Ronson Mysteries

Ronson, Jon Riverhead (400 pp.) $26.95 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-1-59463-137-5

A sterling collection of amazing stories from an offbeat journalist at the top of his game.

Ronson (The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, 2011, etc.) is a British writer and documentarian whose printed work appears mainly in the Guardian, where all but two of these pieces originally appeared.

Perhaps best known for The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004), about the military’s attempt to weaponize psychic phenomena, the author is a born skeptic who, nevertheless, is strongly attracted to the incredible and outré. The pieces range from a discussion about God, horror movies and magnets with the Insane Clown Posse to the title story, about a young woman who disappeared while working on a Disney cruise off the coast of Mexico. Ronson also visited mothers of “Indigo children” (toddling psychics), took pop star Robbie Williams to a UFO conference in New Mexico, leafed through director Stanley Kubrick’s obsessively compulsive collection of film research artifacts, and weathered the wrath of the “sociopathic” inventor of neurolinguistic programming (among other extraordinary hotheads). Each piece is delicious in its own way, amusingly told

by Ronson, who is always a character in the story. Two standouts: “Who Killed Richard Cullen?” a damning and prescient look at the credit industry’s targeting of risky clients for subprime rates, and “Blood Sacrifice,” about the Jesus Christians, a tiny sect that decided collectively to donate kidneys to strangers.

Casual readers will find plenty to like about this excellent collection, but journalism and philosophy students should find it especially stimulating.

2250 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

THE MOBILE WAVE How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything

Saylor, Michael Vanguard/Perseus (306 pp.) $25.99 | Jun. 26, 2012 978-1-59315-720-3

Entrepreneur and technology expert Saylor investigates the stunning new world of smartphones and tablets and likes what he sees.

These new mobile technologies are game-changers, writes the author in this paean to the “disruptive technology” wrought by the little devices that herald not just an information and communication revolution, but a vast rearranging of the social and commercial landscape. With its affordability, worldwide distribution and 24/7 availability, mobile computing has already profoundly affected publishing, entertainment, social interactions, medical care, education, financial transactions, and advertising and marketing. Saylor’s passion for speed, efficiency and the betterment of the human condition through the ability to immediately address health and education concerns is incandescent and well-framed. Still, what is being lost as we so intimately commune with our devices, heads bowed, oblivious to our surroundings? The author addresses issues of privacy, monopoly control and the spread of misinformation, but he is less concerned with the loss of human-to-human interaction and the consequences of super efficiency. An electronic university education feels like a diminished substitute for being in the presence of a great professor; Amazon will never replace poking through a bookstore; and there is something disconcerting with the sentence, “Between 2003 and 2007, more than 2,700 record stores vanished, freeing up real estate and capital that could be used for other things.”

Saylor makes a strong case for the wonder and value of mobile computing, though it leaves a chill in the air.

LESSONS FROM MADAME CHIC 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris

Scott, Jennifer L. Simon & Schuster (240 pp.) $23.00 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-4516-9937-1

Daily Connoisseur blogger Scott explains what she learned about living well from the two French families she stayed with a decade ago as a student in Paris.

Lovers of books about self-improvement will enjoy the author’s debut, which she originally self-published. She winningly combines sincerity and self-deprecation, and her heartfelt desire to improve readers’ lives is touching, if a bit wearying after more than 250 pages. The “lessons” of the book’s title are

certainly sound, though it is difficult to see how they qualify as “stylish secrets”; it’s not exactly a secret, even to unchic Americans, that snacking on junk food is bad, exercise is good and clutter is undesirable. Scott’s gestures toward inclusion are admirable; she is careful to emphasize that true style is not a quality available only to the wealthy. This egalitarian principle is undermined to some degree by constant references to products like the Clarisonic, a “sonic skin care tool” that “starts at $149.” It’s hard to miss the product placement—Scott helpfully includes an index of shockingly expensive recommended beauty aids at the end—but even this can be overlooked, since it’s clear the author is more true believer than cynical shill. For the most part sweet-natured and well-intentioned, the author will find few to quibble with her concluding recommendation to “lead a life of passion.”

Lighthearted and silly, full of advice as patently obvious as it is sensible.

MENACHEM BEGIN A Life

Shilon, Avi Yale Univ. (584 pp.) $40.00 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-300-16235-6

The “first full-scale biography” of Israel’s controversial Prime Minister Menachem Begin (1913–1992).

Israel Hayom op-ed page editor Shilon compellingly integrates his subject’s life story and his contributions into the origins and growth of the state of Israel. Born in Brest-Litovsk, Begin escaped after his family was murdered by the Nazis; he was subsequently imprisoned by the Soviets. Released to fight for the Jewish units of the Anders Army, he was deployed to the Palestinian territories. There, he joined the Jewish underground, rising to leadership in the Irgun faction, which was responsible for blowing up the British headquarters at the King David Hotel. Shilon provides a fascinating account of Begin’s government service between 1977 and 1983, including what became known as the “Begin doctrine,” under which Israel committed to not allowing “our enemies to develop weapons of mass destruction,” as well as the parallel peace agreement with Anwar Sadat’s Egypt, for which Begin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The author’s account of the earlier conflicts over how to fight, who the enemy was, and what Israel would be shows how his subject participated in shaping the political lineups within the country for years after his tenure. Marginalized politically for many years and ridiculed by David Ben-Gurion and members of the Mapai, Begin was recalled from the fringes to government service prior to the outbreak of the 1967 war. Subsequently, he worked closely with Ariel Sharon and a group of generals, who helped him to victory and joined his coalition. Shilon demonstrates how Begin’s religious conceptions greatly affected his country’s political landscape.

A fully realized, important portrait of a significant 20th-century leader.

THE $60,000 DOG My Life with Animals

Slater, Lauren Beacon (280 pp.) $26.95 | $24.95 e-book | Nov. 20, 2012 978-0-8070-0187-5 978-0-8070-0188-2 e-book Slater (Blue Beyond Blue: Extraordinary Tales for Ordinary Dilemmas, 2005, etc.) shares her thoughts and feelings about animals in a revealing, often sur-

prising memoir.

At age 9, when fleeing from her angry and troubled mother, the author found a hidden forest where she coaxed foxes to come to her with treats and where she found a tiny egg and brought it home, hoping a beautiful bird would emerge. The failure of the egg to hatch was the first of a series of encounters, love affairs and mishaps: with the horses at the riding camp in Maine; with the raccoon that entered her bedroom and became her pet in her foster home; with the damaged baby swan she tended as a vet’s tech right after college. However, it is her dogs, Lila and Musashi, that take center stage and introduce issues at the book’s heart: Why do humans keep pets, and what is the role of animals in our lives? Slater’s love for Lila, old and blind, her devotion to the dog’s welfare, the burden of her care, the veterinarian’s bills, the cost of medications—all are grounds for longstanding arguments with her husband, whose view of animals is strictly practical. She asks herself which she loves more, her children or her dogs, and she explores the idea that dogs were crucial to human evolution. Cro-Magnons, who welcomed wolves into their circle, thrived, while Neanderthals, who did not, became extinct. In the final chapters, she highlights her encounters with wasps and bats, species harder to bond with, but Slater continually surprises with connections she makes.

Beautifully written, and not just for animal lovers.

CHASING DOCTOR DOLITTLE Learning the Language of Animals Slobodchikoff, Con St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 27, 2012 978-0-312-61179-8 978-1-250-01205-0 e-book

The director of the Animal Language Institute gives an affirmative answer to the question: “Do animals have language?”

Slobodchikoff (Biology/North Arizona Univ.; Autobiography of a Poodle, 2012, etc.) has closely studied the behavior of rodentlike prairie dogs for years and is convinced that the chirps they emit when they perceive a dangerous situation deliberately communicate information that is ordinarily inaudible to human listeners. He and his students have digitally analyzed the prairie dogs’ 10-second alarm calls (which to us sound like cheeps) | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2251

“Stinging account of a questionable 1986 death penalty case by the lawyer who tried to get it overturned.” from the injustice system

and correlated these to specific environmental stimuli. Slobodchikoff argues that the sounds contain “as much information to prairie dogs as a long, drawn-out sentence would for us.” Along with several other experiments showing that chickens, monkeys and other animals routinely identify predators by different calls, this provides the basis for the author’s contention that animal signaling is in fact a language. Slobodchikoff presents his view in opposition to behaviorists, whom he characterizes as believing that “animals aren’t even conscious of their own existence, much less anyone else’s.” He does not claim that animal communications are comparable to human discourse, but suggests that recognizing they, too, have a primitive kind of language constitutes an important step toward the recognition of our fundamental kinship. Slobodchikoff believes that animals communicate information intentionally, and this shapes their mental representation of the environment in which they live.

Nor is their use of language restricted to the realm of sound, he writes. Dogs signal the boundaries of their territory by leaving odors, squid change color, etc. The author concludes that we need to extend our study of language in other species to the entire “Discourse System” necessary to produce it, including specialized areas of the brain devoted to understanding and producing language.

Intriguing but not entirely convincing.

THE INJUSTICE SYSTEM A Murder in Miami and a Trial Gone Wrong

Smith, Clive Stafford Viking (368 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 12, 2012 978-0-670-02370-7

Stinging account of a questionable 1986 death penalty case by the lawyer who tried to get it overturned.

By the time Smith (Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay, 2007, etc.) became involved in the case of Kris Maharaj, the once-wealthy Trinidadian businessman of Indian heritage had been convicted and sentenced to death in Miami for the murder of a former business partner and his son. Smith received a request to examine the conviction from British diplomatic officials. Despite an already overwhelming workload at his New Orleans public-interest law firm (which seeks justice for indigent defendants victimized by unfair trials) and the lack of a budget to pay him, Smith said he would investigate. He sensed quickly from reading the trial transcript that Maharaj had been railroaded. While gathering evidence, Smith pieced together a grim scenario of a conviction based on the machinations of a crooked homicide detective, cheating prosecutors, biased forensic experts, a dishonest judge and appellate justices determined to uphold it no matter how strongly new information suggested Maharaj’s innocence. Worst of all, the author determined that the defendant’s original trial lawyer had been grossly incompetent and may have intentionally lost the case because 2252 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

of threats made against his family. As the chronicle ends, Smith sees no realistic hope for exoneration, even though he can present an alternative solution that involves South American drug dealers (who had nothing to do with Maharaj) and includes the identities of the actual murderers. In the author’s view, the case is a glaring, but by no means unique, example of massive flaws in the American criminal justice system.

A wrongful-conviction saga different from most others because there is no justice at the end.

NUCLEAR ROULETTE The Truth About the Most Dangerous Energy Source on Earth Smith, Gar Chelsea Green (320 pp.) $29.95 | paper $19.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-60358-477-7 978-1-60358-434-0 paperback

An impassioned case against the use of nuclear power.

In his debut, Earth Island Journal editor emeritus Smith gathers together several arguments against nuclear power into a concise yet detailed package. He forcefully asserts that nuclear power plants are not only unsafe—with severe accidents at nuclear plants in the United States, Russia and Japan serving to “illustrate the ultimate insanity of the nuclear option”—but also polluting, costly and inefficient. He gives several examples of nuclear-plant and government officials downplaying potentially serious risks to the public, and in a compelling chapter, enumerates the failings of what he calls “five of the worst U.S. reactors.”

He examines a host of health and safety issues at plants all over the country, including the much-criticized Indian Point plant north of New York City. Smith concludes with several recommendations for alternatives, advocating for heightened energy efficiency and renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power. The author comes at his subject from an environmentalist point of view, with an explicit desire to “pull the plug on this dangerous technology,” and some readers may be skeptical of his concluding vision of a “sustainable compassion economy.” Many of the arguments will also be familiar to veterans of the nuclear-power debate. Nonetheless, Smith lays out an impressively researched narrative, drawing on facts from a wide range of sources, and makes a strong case that will be hard for even nuclear-power advocates to dismiss out of hand.

For casual readers, the book presents a well-written introduction to the anti-nuclear-power position.

A penetrating argument against today’s nuclear age.

WALKABLE CITY How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time Speck, Jeff Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-374-28581-4

A city planner offers a blueprint for making midsize American cities more pedestrian-friendly.

What makes a city work? According to Washington, D.C.-based city planner Speck (co-author: Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, 2000, etc.), there’s one answer: Cities work best when people can safely and easily walk to most (if not all) aspects of their daily lives. However, the author is not interested in focusing on larger cities like New York or San Francisco, but rather, what “our other, more normal cities can learn.” To that end, he lays out a comprehensive program for smaller cities (think Providence or Grand Rapids), which he calls “The Ten Steps of Walkability.” Speck examines the specifics of each proposed step, with ideas such as fewer cars, more investment in public transit, protecting pedestrians and more. While the author claims that “this book is less a design treatise than an essential call to arms,” it is unfortunately a call to arms weighed down with stodgy prose, excessive statistics and clunky writing.

Additionally, while Speck admits to “an antisuburban snobbery,” he gives short shrift to the accomplishments of larger cities, instead examining how their successes could be duplicated on smaller scales. Speck appears to have an especially contentious relationship with New York. For example, one chapter offers a section titled “Manhattan as Mecca,” in which he praises the city’s traffic-safety record, comprehensive public transit and more. But later in the book, he writes, “one can walk entire neighborhoods without a single tree sighting,” a claim many New Yorkers would dispute.

Some intriguing ideas amid a dry narrative.

NATURE WARS The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds Sterba, Jim Crown (368 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-307-34196-9

Journalist Sterba (Frankie’s Place: A Love Story, 2003, etc.) employs humor and an eye for the absurd to document the sometimes bizarre conflicts that arise as a consequence of America’s transformed relationship with nature.

As forest cover has grown back to more than two-thirds of its pre-colonial extent, wildlife recovery from the “so-called

era of extermination in the last half of the nineteenth century” has accelerated. People who grew up with teddy bears and Disney’s Bambi have different attitudes to furry, cuddly creatures than their grandparents did. Nowadays, someone can get death threats while trying to protect communities from resurgent populations of dangerous wild creatures like coyotes and bears, or even from the activities of feral cats. Sterba provides a summary history of the wilderness colonists found, the replacement of the great eastern forest with farmland and the market-driven extermination of wildlife through commercial hunting and trapping. He continues with cases studies of beaver, deer, bear and geese to show how, as land has reverted to forest, human communities have been polarized by the development of “problems” with each of these species and others.

The author presents a repeating pattern: At first, returners are welcomed and encouraged with food, only to be rejected as the dangerous downside begins to emerge. Detailed accounts of efforts to outline solutions, and also of such often-overlooked consequences of this pattern as roadkill, supplement this deeply conflicted overall picture.

An eye-opening take on how romantic sentimentalism about nature can have destructive consequences.

THE RAREST BLUE The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered Sterman, Baruch with Sterman, Judy Taubes Lyons Press (304 pp.) $24.95 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-7627-8222-2

With his wife, dye expert Sterman delivers a history of a blue dye mentioned in ancient texts but only recently recreated in the modern era.

The Stermans trace the history of tekhelet, a blue dye derived from the glands of certain types of snails that they describe as the “sacred, rarest blue.” The Talmud and other texts of Judaism mention tekhelet; the Book of Numbers in the Bible, for example, requires Jewish people to tie a tekhelet-dyed thread to the corners of their clothing. Tradition specifically dictated that the tekhelet had to be “sky blue,” write the authors, and the use of other blue dyes, such as indigo, was prohibited. But tekhelet was expensive, difficult to make and even illegal during the era of the Roman Empire. As a result, the tradition waned, and many details of the tekhelet-making process were lost for hundreds of years. The Stermans delve into Jewish history, showing how doctrinal skirmishes erupted over the use of the dye and how figures such as the first chief rabbi of Israel and other researchers explored tekhelet’s mysteries. The authors also recount their efforts to mass-produce authentic tekhelet-dyed strings, with the authors traveling to far-off places to collect the snails required. While their dedication is admirable and their research comprehensive, the prose simply isn’t engaging enough to bring an entire book about an obscure blue dye to life. | kirkus.com | nonfiction | 1 October 2012 | 2253

“A richly detailed and well-researched biography of a fashion icon.” from empress of fashion

The latter sections, especially, which include technical descriptions of snails’ physical processes and multiple molecular diagrams, may be tough going for casual readers. That said, the book may hold some appeal for aficionados of either religious history or the study of mollusks—surely one of the few books for which that may be said.

An ambitious but overlong history. (16-page color insert)

EMPRESS OF FASHION A Life of Diana Vreeland Stuart, Amanda Mackenzie Harper/HarperCollins (432 pp.) $35.00 | Dec. 4, 2012 978-0-06-169174-4

Intelligent account of the life and accomplishments of legendary Vogue editor-in chief, Diana Vreeland (1903–1989).

Vreeland was one of the 20th century’s greatest arbiters of style and fashion. Stuart (Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age, 2007) examines the people and events that made Vreeland into the fabulously compelling figure she became. The child of wealthy parents, Vreeland grew up with one foot in Belle Epoque Paris and the other in New York high society. Yet her childhood and early adolescence were far from idyllic. From a young age, she “internalized a sense of herself as ugly”; a difficult relationship with a beautiful but cruel and narcissistic mother only compounded her woes. Vreeland found solace by developing a keen aesthetic sense in tandem with a unique vision for who she wanted to be. By the time she was 16, she had successfully transformed herself into what she called “the Girl”: a popular, trendsetting young woman who lived for beauty and art. At 22 and contrary to all expectation, she married “an astonishingly handsome husband” and moved to London where, within a few short years, she became what Vogue would call “one of the ‘European highlights of chic.’ ” She eventually caught the eye of magazine editor Carmel Snow, who hired Vreeland to work alongside her at Harper’s Bazaar. In the 25 years she was associated with the magazine, Vreeland helped transform it into the most dynamically innovative purveyor of fashion in the United States. But as Stuart shows, it was only later, as editor-in-chief of Vogue and then as a consultant for the Costume Institute at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, that Vreeland was fully able to assert her guiding vision: that fantasy and imagination were the only means by which an individual could find “release from the banality of the world.”

A richly detailed and well-researched biography of a fashion icon. (Two 8-page color inserts)

2254 | 1 October 2012 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

KORE On Sickness, the Sick, and the Search for the Soul of Medicine

Szczeklik, Andrzei Counterpoint (256 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-61902-019-1

An eminent Polish physician reflects on his lifetime practice of medicine.

Szczeklik (Catharsis: On the Art of Medicine, 2005) weighs in on the ongoing debate about the compatibility of religion and science, supporting the view of leading geneticist Francis Collins and rejecting the stance of Richard Dawkins, who embraces atheism. Szczeklik writes that “while evolution can tell us a lot about how life developed, it cannot answer the profound question about the meaning of life, or why the universe exists.” He artfully combines insights from art and religion and speculations on the role that viruses may have played in the origin of DNA, and he sees great hope in the advancement of medicine—e.g., in the treatment of coronary artery disease, organ transplants and the potential of stemcell research. Szczeklik traces how our definition of death has shifted as we have gained the ability to extend life artificially.

The classic criteria—the cessation of “circulation and breathing”—have been supplanted by “irreversible, permanent cessation of brain function.” However, these new criteria are also problematic, as evidenced by cases cited by the author—e.g., a man in a vegetative state for 19 years who spontaneously recovered full mental ability or the controversial case of Terry Schiavo. While parents and spouses are involved in the decision on whether and when to declare a person dead, writes the author, “it is usually the mute decision of the doctors.” Szczeklik suggests that the soul is capable of being found “somewhere between life and death, health and illness, science and art, and also in love.”

A profound celebration of the human spirit.

ANOTHER INSANE DEVOTION On Cats, Love, and Marriage

Trachtenberg, Peter Da Capo/Perseus (272 pp.) $24.00 | Oct. 9, 2012 978-0-7382-1526-6

A rambling depiction of a troubled love affair between a couple and their cats.

Trachtenberg (The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and its Meaning, 2008, etc.) begins with a disclaimer that this memoir “is based on real people…[but] also contains an artifact, an incident or detail that originates solely in my imagination,” which he included “out of curiosity about the nature of nonfiction and its tolerance for admixture or adulteration.” The author

warns that he questions whether the memories he is writing about are real and admits that his wife disputes his account.

“About my cat and the self I am with her I have fewer doubts.”

The author and his wife—novelist Mary Gaitskill, referred to throughout the memoir as “F.”—married shortly after 9/11 and moved to a town north of New York City, where they and their cats could enjoy the rural environment. In 2008, Trachtenberg was teaching creative writing in a college in North Carolina while his wife attended an artist’s residency in Italy. The cat sitter they hired to look after their collection of cats lost track of Biscuit, and he went missing. The narrative thread of the book is built on the author’s decision to fly home and join the search for Biscuit, with flashbacks to other cats in their life intermixed with incidents in his courtship and subsequent married life. Trachtenberg paints a picture of his wife as a socially maladroit woman who courted rejection and had been cruelly bullied in her youth. He writes that he was drawn to her personality, which he found catlike: elusive and inscrutable.

Despite the strains in their relationship—her deep depression after the death of another cat, his career problems and failure to be self-supporting, and more—the author reports surprise when his wife told him she wanted a separation. Ultimately, they reconciled, and Biscuit was found.

A detailed but superficial account of a series of events related by an unreliable narrator.

1912 The Year the World Discovered Antarctica Turney, Chris Counterpoint (320 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-58243-789-7

An in-depth look at a year in which five different expeditions set out to explore Antarctica.

As the last continent to be discovered and explored, the history of Antarctica is relatively short; the first recorded landfall on the continent wasn’t until 1821. But in 1912, “at the height of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, the door to Antarctica was flung open.” The continent would see no fewer than five different national exploration teams during that year, and geologist Turney (Earth Science/Univ. of New South Wales; Ice, Mud & Blood: Lessons from Climates Past, 2008, etc.) examines each expedition in turn, after outlining some of the earliest attempts at exploring Antarctica, including Ernest Shackleton’s 1907-1909 expedition. Englishman Robert Scott and Norwegian Roald Amundsen are perhaps the best known of these explorers: Amundsen reached the South Pole first, in 1911, while Scott’s party reached it five weeks later, then found themselves pinned down on their return by a blizzard, which ultimately killed the entire expedition. However, the most interesting parts of this book deal with the three less-famous expeditions, led by Nobu Shirase from Japan, Wilhelm Filchner of Germany and Douglas Mawson of Australia and New |

Zealand. Shirase’s expedition and its findings faded into obscurity because official accounts went untranslated from their original Japanese for years. Filchner’s ship spent eight months trapped in the sea ice, and although he returned with many oceanographic insights, his crew nearly mutinied, and Filchner returned to Germany as a failure. Mawson almost died when a lack of food forced him to eat his own sled dogs, leading to acute vitamin A poisoning from eating the dogs’ livers.

While each expedition could easily merit its own book, Turney adroitly manages to give a full portrait of each explorer and crew without giving any short shrift.

UNCONSCIOUS BRANDING How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing

Van Praet, Douglas Palgrave Macmillan (288 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-230-34179-1

The executive vice president of ad agency Deutsch LA argues that successful advertising depends on recognizing “the subtleties of nonverbal communication, body language, and unconscious micro-expressions of emotions.”

In other words, Van Praet writes in his debut, marketers can profitably apply insights from neuropsychology about the biological basis of behavior. As fMRI brain-scan experiments reveal, when subjects are called upon to make decisions, their responses may bypass conscious awareness. People may believe they prefer one brand over another because of taste, but the author cites experiments that mix up labels to demonstrate that this is not always the case. Instead, he explains, we choose brands that are familiar because they evoke pleasant emotions and are “road signs” that allow us to take “mental shortcuts.” As the complexity of our lives increases, we tend “to blindly obey… stereotypical rules of thumb that make our decisions for us.”

Van Praet suggests that our inborn need for social attachment can be tapped in today’s complex, consumption-based society by treating buyers as members of communities whose buying preferences are a mark of their self-identity. He offers illustrations of steps that a marketer can take to appeal to potential buyers on an unconscious level, such as a Deutsch ad for the VW Passat that featured a little boy dressed as Darth Vader deploying the force to start the car (a Super Bowl attention-getter). He compares the special garments of the Catholic clergy to the white lab coats featured in pharmaceutical ads as examples of the hypnotic power of authority in unconscious branding.

Suggesting that the time has come for a more creative approach, he mocks the use of market surveys. To question consumers about their product choices, he writes, is as sensible as “asking the political affiliation of a tuna fish sandwich.”

A provocative approach that should give pause to consumers as well as marketers.

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children’s & teen These titles earned the Kirkus Star:

MISS MOUSIE’S BLIND DATE by Tim Beiser; illus. by Rachel Berman................................................................ p. 2258 HOW MIRKA MET A METEORITE by Barry Deutsch................p. 2261 SPIRIT SEEKER by Gary Golio; illus. by Rudy Gutierrez.......... p. 2263 CHARLEY’S FIRST NIGHT by Amy Hest; illus. by Helen Oxenbury............................................................... p. 2263 COLORFUL DREAMER by Marjorie Blain Parker; illus. by Holly Berry......................................................................p. 2268 BARTHOLOMEW BIDDLE AND THE VERY BIG WIND

by Gary Ross; illus. by Matthew Myers.......................................p. 2269 LIVE THROUGH THIS by Mindi Scott......................................... p. 2270 PASSION BLUE by Victoria Strauss............................................ p. 2272 WATERLOO & TRAFALGAR by Olivier Tallec........................... p. 2273 LITTLE CHICK AND MOMMY CAT by Marta Zafrilla; illus. by Nora Hilb.........................................................................p. 2276 TWELVE KINDS OF ICE by Ellen Bryan Obed; illus. by Barbara McClintock.......................................................p. 2279 THE ICIEST, DICIEST, SCARIEST SLED RIDE EVER!

by Rebecca Rule; illus. by Jessica Thermes....................................p. 2279 COLD SNAP by Eileen Spinelli; illus. by Marjorie Priceman.....p. 2279 CHARLEY’S FIRST NIGHT The Jon Ronson Mysteries

Hest, Amy Illus. by Oxenbury, Helen Candlewick (32 pp.) $15.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7636-4055-2

THE PRINCESS OF 8TH STREET

Alsenas, Linas Illus. by Alsenas, Linas Abrams (32 pp.) $16.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-8109-8972-6

A young girl imagines her home to be a palace, but outside on the playground, life is not quite so royal and charming.

Jane has many responsibilities as a princess. She must study (Math for Monarchs), manage the royal zoo (stuffed animals) and have tea with her ladies-in-waiting (dolls) “every day at half past three.” She must also watch out for her “horrible toad” of a brother who torments her kingdom—as all brothers are apt to do. But outside the safety of her castle, Princess Jane is quiet and shy. One day, while accompanying the Queen (her mother) to the market, she stops at the “pleasure grounds,” where many lords and ladies are running and playing. Princess Jane doesn’t think she fits in and has avoided the playground in the past; why should this time be any different? But to her surprise, she meets another “princess.” She just might have a fairy-tale ending after all. Alsenas dresses Jane in pink frills, and the story’s jacket is awash in sparkles, but with tantrums and worries, Princess Jane is identifiably, and most definitely, just a child navigating the world of making friends.

A refreshing dose of reality for all those princess wannabes. (Picture book. 3-6)

OUT OF REACH

Arcos, Carrie Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-1-4424-4053-1 Ellen Hopkins fans will find another look at methamphetamine addiction in this quick, realistic debut.

When 16-year-old Rachel Stevens receives a cryptic email about the location of her missing older brother, Micah, a promising guitarist turned meth addict, she knows she has to try to find him. She enlists the help of Micah’s former band mate, Tyler, and the pair secretly heads to Ocean Beach, Calif. As they roam the city’s seedier neighborhoods, where stolen cars and drug deals are daily occurrences, Rachel’s first-person narration alternates between their search and budding friendship (or possibly more) and

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recollections of her relationship with Micah, watching Micah slowly succumb to drugs, and her plight with a cheating boyfriend. In the process, she begins to tackle her anger, guilt and grief, to recognize her own weaknesses and to form her beliefs concerning religion, relationships and even addiction itself (“calling it a disease or saying that addiction was based on predispositions or hereditary seemed to negate the personal choices it took for someone to become an addict”).

Although more didactic and less raw, dramatic and compelling than Hopkins’, Rachel’s pursuit enlightens readers about the patterns and hazards of meth addiction, as well as the destruction of the family left behind.

The final pages offer a hopeful conclusion to Rachel’s even bigger search—for herself. (Fiction. 14 & up)

IVY AND BEAN MAKE THE RULES

Barrows, Annie Illus. by Blackall, Sophie Chronicle (128 pp.) $14.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-4521-0295-5 Series: Ivy + Bean, 9

It’s spring break, and Bean’s big sister, Nancy, is off to Monkey Park, where she’ll get to spend every day having secret, big-kid fun at Girl Power 4-Ever Camp for girls 11-14. Bean is 7.

No way is Bean attending Puppet Fun! She and Ivy can make their own fun. After a false start (one board does not a tree house make; some things are beyond even duct tape’s powers), Ivy has a brilliant idea, and Camp Flaming Arrow is born. When their moms let these small agents of chaos visit the park on their own, readers will know what to expect.

Nancy’s camp offers Crafts, Dance and First Aid; so does Ivy and Bean’s—with a difference. Their friendship bracelets turn into chains binding Houdini hand and foot. Their tap dancing (stick thumbtacks into shoe soles, climb onto old metal wash tub and voilà!) is more fun than a silly old dance routine—louder anyway. Their First Aid, with the help of fake blood and bandages, morphs into a game of Zombies among the Puppet Fun kids. Quickly acquiring an enthusiastic following, the two inventive camp counselors give a whole new meaning to Girl Power. As usual, Blackall’s art conveys the girls’ anarchically imaginative glee, bringing the mischief and mayhem to messy, hilarious life.

Making the rules rules! (Fiction. 6-9)

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FISHTALE

Bauer, Hans; Masciola, Catherine Illus. by Masciola, Catherine Amazon Children’s Publishing (208 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7614-6223-1 978-0-7614-6224-8 e-book Four kids in rural Mississippi set out to catch an enormous, legendary catfish that gives them the chase of their lives in what can only be called “one heck of

a fish tale.”

Since their father died in Vietnam, 12-year-old Sawyer and 9-year-old Elvira help their mother, Rose, run the family’s catfish farm. After a catfish bites Rose’s finger and swallows her wedding ring, she becomes ill. When Sawyer hears about Ol’ One Eye, the “biggest, oldest, smartest, and meanest durn cat that ever swum the Yazoo,” he falls under the mythic “Catfish Time” and believes if he catches Ol’ One Eye, he will find Rose’s missing ring and she will improve. Armed with a map, poles, tackle, a rowboat, bologna sandwiches and spunk, Sawyer, his best friend, his cousin and stowaway Elvira paddle up the Yazoo seeking the phantom catfish. Told in an easygoing, colloquial style, the fast-paced plot carries readers and the four unsuspecting pals along at a rapid clip as they chase and are chased by a humongous, predatory catfish that leads them through a deserted plantation and into a submerged riverboat. Realistic black-and-white spot art reinforces the fishing theme.

Four feisty kids, one wily fish, creepy bayou atmosphere and a whopper of a tale. (map) (Adventure. 10-14)

MISS MOUSIE’S BLIND DATE

Beiser, Tim Illus. by Berman, Rachel Tundra (24 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 9, 2012 978-1-77049-251-6 Spring fever strikes even the rodents.

And who knows where the heart leads?

“Spring is such a funny thing—it wakes up all the plants / And makes our furry woodland friends go cuckoo for romance.”

Indeed. One day, when Miss Mousie is shopping at the mole’s deli, her heart stops at the sight of rakish Matt LaBatt (the water rat), who looks suave (and très Français) in striped shirt and kerchief. She can barely speak...or squeak. “Her little legs went weak.” When she drops her hankie to catch his attention, Matt calls her fat, which brings tears to her eyes and sends her to bed for a day. What brings her out of sadness is an anonymous invitation to dinner; of course she knows just who it is!

She dresses to the nines, and all the animals applaud her as she walks excitedly to her date. But the would-be suitor is not Matt the water rat; it’s the kind mole who owns the deli. He tries all manner of slick techniques to woo her, and they fall comically

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“As the title promises, this sophisticated science-fiction anthology is diverse in nearly every sense of the word.” from diverse energies

flat. But in the end, he pledges to be himself if she will do the same. Her reply? “Oui-oui.” Beiser’s sprightly text has warmth, heart and a valuable lesson. Berman’s pictures, in watercolor and gouache on rag, suggest Beatrix Potter, ably matching the crisp elegance of the story.

Wonderful. (Picture book. 5-8)

THE UNOFFICIAL NARNIA COOKBOOK

Bucholz, Dinah Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (240 pp.) $19.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-4022-6641-6 Bucholz, author of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook (2010), creates or re-creates Beautiful Breakfasts; Snacks, Teas, and Meals on the Run; Lunch and Dinner Menus; and Fabulous Feasts in four chapters.

Although she rates the recipes with stars by degree of difficulty, many of these are extremely complex. Each recipe is clearly tied to particular incidents and chapters in the books of Narnia.

The font is rather small for a cookbook, and the instructions both exhaustive and full of warnings about alcohol and caffeine and techniques not for children. While she mostly uses real and fresh ingredients, periodically she recommends using premade cakes or instant puddings. There is also an amazing reliance on cooking spray. She very carefully defines and describes sauces and techniques but maintains an offhand, almost twee, tone in her introductions and commentary. While striving to stick to the actual meals in the stories (Eel Stew! Boar’s Head!), Bucholz periodically offer substitutions for hard-to-get ingredients; some of these may not be so hard-to-get, depending on location: goat meat, red currants and gooseberries, for example.

Some of her culinary history is a little suspect, like a paragraph about medieval feasts that does not define “medieval” or specify country but merely states that rulers were indifferent toward the poor and ate magnificently while the poor starved.

If one wants to make Porridge and Cream like Shasta had or pack up some cold sliced chicken such as Prince Caspian carried, one can find that. Reading about it might be more fun. (sources, index [not seen]) (Cookbook. 10 & up)

DIVERSE ENERGIES

Bucknell, Tobias S.; Monti, Joe--Eds. Lee & Low (368 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-1-60060-887-2 As the title promises, this sophisticated science-fiction anthology is diverse in nearly every sense of the word.

Beyond their being science fiction, no single element or quality unites the collection’s stories. However, the anthology

was created in response to concerns that mixed-race characters, non-Western characters, LGBTQ characters and characters of color were underrepresented in young adult fiction, and most stories bring one or more of these underrepresented identities to the foreground. Readers will find poor children working in mines and factories, a have-not yao boy kidnapping a rich you girl and a girl reeling as the world inexplicably changes around her, and no one else notices. Although many stories imagine bleak futures, their tones are refreshingly varied. Daniel Wilson’s tale of a robot attack at a frozen-yogurt shop takes the form of an almost-comical police-interview transcript. Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Solitude” is a sweeping, nostalgic epic. K. Tempest Bradford’s “Uncertainty Principle” is a character-driven timetravel tale. Understanding many of the stories takes patience: Readers are plunged quickly into complex worlds, and exposition often comes slowly.

Careful, curious readers will be rewarded, though probably not comforted, by the many realities and futures imagined here. (Science fiction/anthology. 12 & up)

MAKE MAGIC! DO GOOD!

Clayton, Dallas Illus. by Clayton, Dallas Candlewick (112 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-7636-5746-8

Indie best-seller Clayton (An Awesome Book!, 2012) offers this light collection of didactic verse for young readers as his traditionalpublishing debut.

Accompanying these short lyric poems are Clayton’s own free-wheeling illustrations done with “two parts positive vibes and three parts watercolor sprinkles,” making for two-page spreads that give these potent messages added levity and much-needed breathing room. Many of these works make no bones about driving home clear imperatives like those found in the volume’s title piece: “Make magic / do good. / Be who you are. / Be what you should.” But Clayton’s more compelling poems are those that are downright silly—“Did you hear about the race? / Hooray! I came in second place. / And second place will do just fine / in a race to hug a porcupine”—or whose lessons are slightly muted, as in “Butterfly”: “If you find a caterpillar / and you keep it in a jar, / just think of how your life would be / if you weren’t where you are, / if someone put you in a bowl / or in a tiny box / or in an old aquarium / filled with shiny rocks.” While Clayton succinctly delivers a number of behavioral tips looking to foster kindness, generosity, courage and spontaneity in the next generation, his poetic touch is sometimes heavy-handed.

Let the effervescence in the pictures leaven the didacticism of the poems. (Poetry. 6-10)

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“Cumming’s illustrations affectionately capture a child’s-eye view of the immensity and wonder of the world and have many funny touches.” from the red boat

FITZ

Cochrane, Mick Knopf (192 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | PLB $19.99 Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-375-85683-9 978-0-375-89773-3 e-book 978-0-375-95683-6 PLB A high school sophomore kidnaps his estranged father at gunpoint.

Fitzgerald, or Fitz as he calls himself, has never met his biological father. His mother is maddeningly evasive on the subject, but Fitz learns that his father, a wealthy lawyer, lives nearby from the address on the monthly child support checks. He obtains a gun with unbelievable ease from a schoolyard drug dealer and hatches a plan to hold his dad hostage with the vague notion of getting “a lump sum of his father’s time and attention. Back pay.” Despite the sinister presence of the gun and his father’s initial shock, the two are soon enjoying a pleasant day out together, which includes a trip to the zoo and lunch at a diner. But Fitz quickly realizes that it will take more than one afternoon to bond with this person who is essentially a stranger. “What you get at gunpoint, that’s not love…you can take a guy’s car, but you can’t jack someone’s heart.” The distant, third-person, present-tense narration fails to convey the emotional urgency of the provocative premise, and the gun, which is hardly mentioned after its initial appearance and harmlessly discharged once near the end, feels like a titillating contrivance added on to spice up an otherwise unremarkable story of father/ son conflict.

Ends not with a bang, but a whimper. (Fiction. 12-15)

THE LAZARUS MACHINE

Crilley, Paul Pyr/Prometheus Books (280 pp.) $16.95 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-61614-688-7 Series: A Tweed & Nightingale Adventure, 1 A series opener, Crilley’s steampunk adventure follows an unlikely duo to the underworld of Victorian London.

Coldly rational and from the bad part of town, Tweed is 17 when his father is kidnapped. Headstrong and highborn, Octavia is about the same age, only her mother has been missing a year, so she has had more time to gather facts on the likely culprits. A nebulous Ministry is at the center of their suspicions, as are the resurrected characters of Professor Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes and a nefarious mastermind. Octavia’s father turns a blind eye to her comings and goings, and Tweed has no mother, but the two receive help from a mildly entertaining couple Tweed and his father know. This seemingly low-bred pair of lovebirds adds one of the few human touches to a story that is too full of gadgets and machinations 2260 | 1 October 2012 | children ’s

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for most readers to keep track of. The primary action of the book is a break-in at the Ministry beneath London that Tweed and Octavia execute with success, only to find all is not what they expected. Though the style of writing is simple and engaging enough, the story itself goes in too many directions to follow, leaving open too many loose ends for readers to know exactly what they are looking for in the next installment.

Too complicated to engage. (Steampunk. 12 & up)

THE RED BOAT

Cumming, Hannah Illus. by Cumming, Hannah Child’s Play (32 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-84643-493-8 A “magic” boat offers a lonely girl a whole new world...of imagination.

Little Posy, whose unruly mane of red hair is nearly as large as her body, is apprehensive about the big new house her family has just moved to. The people next door seem strange, and her new bedroom is too dark at night; she only has her faithful yellow dog George to keep her company. And what will her new school be like? In the backyard, Posy and George find a red rowboat under some bushes, and they play in it all afternoon.

That night, Posy can’t sleep and sneaks into the backyard with George to play in the boat again. This time, they float all the way to the South Pole, where they meet some polar bears. On subsequent nights, they play hide-and-seek on the moon and visit a large plain that’s home to an amazing variety of friendly animals. Posy’s nighttime adventures and George’s moral support give her courage, and she boldly greets her new neighbors and makes many friends at school, with no problem. Cumming’s illustrations affectionately capture a child’s-eye view of the immensity and wonder of the world and have many funny touches. Her text is crisp and direct, an ideal complement.

A deftly delivered lesson on facing life’s little challenges.

(Picture book. 3-6)

WHAT’S FOR LUNCH? How Schoolchildren Eat Around the World Curtis, Andrea Photos by Duivenvoorden, Yvonne Red Deer Press (40 pp.) $12.95 paperback | Oct. 15, 2012 978-0-88995-482-3

“Organic,” “sustainable” and “food miles” all appear in the comprehensive glossary of this book, whose simple title and cover photograph imply a basic approach to the international topic of food.

This very political book, biased toward food equity, explains why certain foods are eaten in certain countries and why school lunches are important. They fill various needs, from the

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teaching of courtesy and table manners in France and Japan to the supply of basic nutrients for Somali children in refugeecamp schools. Efforts to improve children’s eating habits, curb obesity, encourage use of local crops and provide food to students with limited economic resources are discussed. As the book is from Canada, naturally there are some references to that country in many of the comparisons. Though published in a seemingly picture-book format, the text is complex. Most twopage spreads describe school lunchtime in an individual country, with a cartoonish illustration on the left and a large photograph of a typical meal on the right with numbered arrows pointing to particular elements. Lengthy captions are keyed to each number. Small globe images in each spread point out countries, but larger maps and a bibliography would be useful. “The Message to Parents, Teachers and Students” provides project ideas.

Adults may have to force-feed this purposive book to those not yet committed to the important causes outlined here. (Nonfiction. 9-12)

WILL SPARROW’S ROAD

Cushman, Karen Clarion (224 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-547-73962-5

In Elizabethan England, young Will hits the road with an assortment of human characters and Duchess, one smart pig.

His mother deserted him, his father sold him to an innkeeper for his fill of ale and the innkeeper is about to sell him for a chimney sweep just for stealing a pie to feed his empty stomach. Will, a selfproclaimed liar and thief, is also bold and quick-witted and so runs away. On the road, he encounters a thief, a cheating dentist, an illusionist, a blind juggler, the smart pig and her owner and Master Tidball, a purveyor of oddities. Traveling with the last from fair to fair, he slowly befriends one of those oddities, a girl who is advertised as a cat. (She has hypertrichosis, a genetic disorder causing facial hair, as Cushman explains in her note.) The ragtag entourage also includes a dwarf. Along the way, readers get a flavor for Elizabethan foods, clothing and song. Cushman, a Newbery Award– and Honor–winning author for her historical novels featuring girls, now presents a boy as her protagonist.

She sends him on an inner journey as well as a physical one, allowing him to grow in empathy and to see past people’s physical appearances into their true character.

A compelling coming-of-age road trip. (author’s note, suggested reading, selected resources) (Historical fiction. 8-12)

HOW MIRKA MET A METEORITE

Deutsch, Barry Illus. by Deutsch, Barry Amulet/Abrams (128 pp.) $16.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-4197-0398-0 Series: Hereville, 2

Hooray!

The charmingly imperfect Mirka returns to battle a miming meteorite (How Mirka Got Her Sword, 2010). Still grounded after her last adventure, Mirka wriggles her way out of her house arrest after an important game of chess with her stepmother, receiving from her a message of things to come: “[W]hen you have to make a decision, imagine the person you want to become someday. Ask yourself, what would that person do?” After another encounter with the witch and the multilimbed troll of the first book, Mirka finds herself stuck with a sapient meteorite that has assumed her appearance. What seems like a great idea (just think: They can split chores!) quickly sours when she finds herself missing meals and time with her family. When Mirka decides she’s had enough, she challenges Meteorite Mirka (known as Metty) to an epic battle that will take brains—not brawn—to win. Watching Mirka fight the seemingly perfect version of herself is riveting. Deutsch has created a wonderful world in Mirka’s insulated Orthodox village and continues to capture it adroitly—though he has left himself enough room to blast Mirka out to space without readers batting an eye. Mirka is unflinchingly likable because she is so tempestuous and inexact, and really, who can’t relate to that?

This truly clever series is lots of fun. (Graphic fantasy. 8-13)

LITTLE BO IN LONDON The Ultimate Adventure of Bonnie Boadicea Edwards, Julie Andrews Illus. by Cole, Henry Harper/HarperCollins (112 pp.) $19.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-06-008911-5

The fourth volume in a gentle series chronicling the adventures of a tiny gray Persian cat called Bonnie Boadicea, or Little Bo for short.

Bo is sailing with her human friend Billy and her feline friend Panache on a yacht called Legend when it is attacked by pirates. Billy, Bo and Panache are instrumental in thwarting the attack and saving Legend’s owners, Lord and Lady Goodlad. The news of their heroics spreads quickly, and they soon find themselves on a course for England to have tea with the queen. The adventures in this episodic tale continue at the palace, where Bo and Panache are chased off by a bunch of corgis and have to find their way back to Billy by way of the queen’s stables. The sophisticated vocabulary and prose style combined

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with the quaint, nostalgic feel of this offering will likely make it more appealing to adults than children. However, those young readers who enjoy gentle, lyrical, meandering stories will happily lose themselves in the charmed world presented here.

Cole’s illustrations are a welcome addition, lending whimsy and vibrancy to settings and characters—human and feline—alike.

While this sweet adventure story with feline protagonists won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, it will resonate with just the right reader. (Fantasy. 8-12)

RABBITYNESS

Empson, Jo Illus. by Empson, Jo Child’s Play (32 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-84643-492-1 When a creative rabbit disappears after spreading color and music through the woods, other rabbits feel a sense of loss until they discover what he left behind.

Rabbit enjoys “rabbity” things, like hopping, jumping, twirling his whiskers, washing his ears, burrowing and sleeping, but he also enjoys “unrabbity” things, like painting and music. Rabbit fills “the woods with color and music,” and his happiness spreads everywhere. But when Rabbit disappears, the woods turn “quiet and gray,” and the rabbits feel sad—until they find the paints, brushes, chimes, pipes and drums Rabbit left for them. They use Rabbit’s gifts to create their own color and music, remember him and feel happy. The repetitive, spare text works beautifully with expressive watercolor illustrations that rely on pattern and color to stress the connection between creativity and happiness. If Rabbit’s doing “rabbity” things, his black silhouette appears as a subdued shape in a tiny green grass patch on a pure white background. If he’s painting or making music, his black form wields brushes and blows a giant pipe against an energized background that explodes with multicolor splashes and musical notes. After Rabbit disappears, everything’s black, white and gray; when the rabbits begin painting and making music, pages teem with whimsical color and pattern.

An imaginatively designed lesson in creativity and loss.

(Picture book. 3-6)

DARKWATER

Fisher, Catherine Dial (240 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-8037-3818-8 A slim, elegant retelling of the classic Faustian fable, with an inspirational twist.

Victorian adolescent Sarah may be a menial drudge, but she never forgets that she is also the last of the arrogant aristocratic Trevelyans, now fallen into shameful penury. So she cannot refuse Lord Azrael, the current owner 2262 | 1 October 2012 | children ’s

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of her ancestral Darkwater Hall, when he offers proper work, real learning and even a chance to win back everything her family lost; all she has to risk is her soul. One hundred years later, Tom is another destitute and bullied teen, who would give anything to attend the elite school at Darkwater Hall—anything but the ghostly presence of his twin brother, Simon. When he meets a weird (but oddly mature) girl named Sarah, she warns him away from the new teacher, Azrael—who has just tempted Tom with the education he craves. While not as dense or subtle as her more recent work, this reissue of an early Fisher novel displays her spare lyrical prose and evocative sense of place.

(This is its first U.S. publication.) The characters may be paperthin and their motivations opaque, but they serve as effective players for a morality tale. Readers acquainted with Goethe, Milton or alchemical lore will be rewarded by a plethora of allusions both obvious and sly; but even those unfamiliar with the legendary source material will appreciate the layered symbolism and uplifting message.

A dark but graceful parable of temptation, pride, revenge and hope; ideal for classroom reading. (Fantasy. 11-16)

TWICE SHY

Freivald, Patrick JournalStone (240 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 26, 2012 978-1-936564-50-7 And you think your mom is weird.

A carrier of Zombie Virus since birth, Ani died two years ago. Since then, her mom—formerly a top ZV researcher, now Ani’s high school nurse—has kept her daughter’s body more or less intact and her brain-eating impulse largely in check, all the while feverishly working on a cure. With her mom’s encouragement but against her natural inclinations, Ani joins the emo crowd at school to justify her pale skin, decaying-body-concealing clothing and job at the gaming shop, whose incense helps to mask the ever-present scent of formaldehyde. Less an action-adventure than a study of this peculiar mother-daughter relationship, Freivald’s debut milks all humor inherent in the situation while avoiding none of the darkness. The juxtaposition of the aggressively normal against the completely bizarre—Ani and “Dr. Frankenmom” unpack the bananas before heading downstairs into the stateof-the-art lab for more serum testing—is just right. As junior year lurches along (just like Ani on her perpetually broken hip), Ani finds herself chafing against her mother’s restrictions and caught between two boys: the seriously unhinged emo Dylan, who is obsessed with death, and the utterly adorable jock Mike, a childhood friend whose psycho girlfriend targets Ani for bullying. If some plot twists and secondary characterization falter, Ani’s intelligent, ZV-enhanced snark never does.

A compulsively readable and pleasantly different zombie tale, all the way to its pull-no-punches end. (Horror. 14 & up)

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“Expressionist color channels Coltrane’s psychic life: His hobby-filled childhood is sweet potato pie–sunny; a scene of drug withdrawal is moonlit black.” from spirit seeker

SPIRIT SEEKER John Coltrane’s Musical Journey

Golio, Gary Illus. by Gutierrez, Rudy Clarion (48 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 23, 2012 978-0-547-23994-1

In attuned counterpoint, Golio and Gutierrez present a portrait of John Coltrane’s lifelong quest to discover and share his spiritual truth through music.

Beginning with John’s 12th year, Golio traces his religious roots: Grandfather Blair, a Methodist minister, headed a household including John’s parents, aunt and cousin. Within two years, his grandparents, father and uncle died, splintering the family. In one bright spot, a pastor began a community band, leading to a borrowed sax and lessons for John. His musical gift bloomed amid loneliness and setbacks. Touring’s pressures led to alcohol and drug dependence. Golio continuously weaves such biographical details into the tapestry of spiritual longing that characterized Coltrane’s life. “He began falling asleep onstage. Or showing up late, only to be fired. Part of him stood in the darkness, while another part was searching for the light.”

Gutierrez’s full-bleed acrylic paintings pulse with emotional intensity and iconic religious images; Coltrane is often shown with a halo or wings. Expressionist color channels Coltrane’s psychic life: His hobby-filled childhood is sweet potato pie– sunny; a scene of drug withdrawal is moonlit black. Portraits of jazz influences—Dizzy, Duke, Bird—appear throughout. Coltrane’s spiritual apex, a vision coinciding, Golio notes, with the development of his masterwork, A Love Supreme, is depicted with John meditating, Buddha-like against glowing pink.

Lyrically narrated, resplendently illustrated and deeply respectful of both subject and audience. (afterword, author’s and artist’s notes, bibliography, discography) (Picture book/biography. 8-12)

UNDER THE BRIDGE

Harmon, Michael Knopf (272 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | PLB $19.99 Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-375-86646-3 978-0-375-89642-2 e-book 978-0-375-96646-0 PLB Tate’s crew are all skateboarders, but it’s his little brother Indy who has the talent—and also a taste for drugs and rebelling against their straight-laced dad.

In their neighborhood, Tate has learned to use his fists and let his anger fly when he sees injustice. But he doesn’t do drugs—not since the overdose death of fellow border Cutter, likely a suicide, one year ago. Devastated by the loss, Tate has aligned with his father, but he frantically worries about his

brother when their father throws him out. The inflexible father, the call of drug-induced numbness and the evil of the dealer: They have all been done before, along with the antihero who fights for justice against all odds. What distinguishes this take is the skateboarding, the tricks and competition, as well as the camaraderie. Throw in a little romance, swearing, fistfights and some skanky sex scenes, plus a few adults whose dedication to the well-being of teens shines through, and you’ve got a book that pulls through despite its clichés. Action centers around the Monster, “the biggest, deepest, craziest skate bowl in Spokane, and the state of Washington for that matter.”

While the swearing, sex and drug use proclaim this an issues book for older teens, the heart is very much in the after-school-special camp, with a satisfying resolution never in doubt. (Fiction. 14-18)

CHARLEY’S FIRST NIGHT

Hest, Amy Illus. by Oxenbury, Helen Candlewick (32 pp.) $15.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7636-4055-2

The tenderness a child feels for his new puppy seeps from the pages of a book sure to be instantly beloved.

“I carried him in my old baby blanket, which was soft and midnight blue, and we were new together and I was very, very careful not to slip in the snow and I thought about his name.”

Charley Korn is the puppy; the young narrator is Henry Korn.

Hest’s stream-of-consciousness sentences are interspersed with short, declarative statements and bits of dialogue, creating a dreamy, lyrical cadence. Oxenbury’s pencil-and-watercolor illustrations are infused with softness and warmth, depicting the loving bond between boy and dog. Even the design of the book, with text and pictures set within wide borders on each page, inspires a feeling of intimacy. Once home, Henry shows Charley around (“This is home, Charley”) and recounts his parents’ expectations, including the one where Charley will sleep in the kitchen—alone—forever. Henry dutifully arranges Charley’s bed, but the nighttime crying begins. After the second rescue, Henry shows Charley his room, where Charley wants to be put on Henry’s bed—or so Henry interprets. Thus the two spend the night, predictably the first of many, cuddled together.

Be forewarned: Youngsters will find Charley as irresistible as Henry does and will no doubt beg for puppies of their own. (Picture book. 4-8)

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“Packed with fascinating period details about the Victorian spiritualist craze, Hooper’s suspenseful tale delivers authentic characters, bizarre encounters, plot twists and romance.” from velvet

THE EVOLUTION OF MARA DYER

Hodkin, Michelle Simon & Schuster (544 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 23, 2012 978-1-4424-2179-0 Series: Mara Dyer, 2 Mara’s absorbing tale continues in this first sequel in the Mara Dyer series, answering some questions but, clearly, leaving plenty of suspense still to come.

In the opening book, the author left open whether Mara’s difficulties were psychological, paranormal or criminal. Here, Mara continues her relationship with wealthy Noah, and the two learn that they have more in common than they ever suspected. Meanwhile, Mara insists that her supposedly dead former boyfriend, Jude, continues to stalk her. She is being treated as an outpatient for PTSD after causing (as she originally believed) the deaths of Jude and her friends, but she’s sure she doesn’t need to be in residential psychiatric care. Noah uses his wits and wealth to try to protect her and to investigate the possibility that Jude indeed survived, even as Mara’s actions appear increasingly disturbed. Hodkin stretches the story into another lengthy tome but keeps readers’ interest focused throughout with a lively prose style and a bit of romance. Her skillful exploitation of ambiguity enhances the suspense, exploring not only the psychological possibilities, but narrative tricks as well. Is it a realistic tale of insanity, a supernatural story or a mystery?

Readers will be guessing until a final suspenseful scene resolves some secrets and sets up what promises to be an exciting and intriguing next installment.

Interesting and unusual. (Suspense. 12 & up)

VELVET

Hooper, Mary Bloomsbury (336 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-59990-912-7 A Victorian teen becomes dangerously ensnared in the sinister world of a fraudulent medium in this well-constructed, thoroughly researched tale set in London in 1900.

A “quick and intelligent girl” with no family to support her, Velvet works long hours under dreadful conditions at Ruffold’s Steam Laundry. A year ago, Velvet’s drunken, abusive father fell into the river while chasing her, and she did nothing to save him. Guarding her guilty secret, Velvet abandoned her old life and childhood beau, fled to London and changed her name. When the famous clairvoyant Madame Savoya hires Velvet, she’s thrilled to live in Madame’s posh house and quickly develops a crush on Madame’s handsome assistant, George. Initially grateful and in awe of Madame’s seemingly incredible ability to communicate with spirits of 2264 | 1 October 2012 | children ’s

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the dead and bring comfort to grieving survivors, Velvet gradually discovers Madame’s skills are not all they appear to be. By including descriptions of Madame’s private sessions with individual clients, Hooper clues readers in to Madame’s fraudulent schemes long before Velvet realizes the appalling truth. Vulnerable and credible, Velvet tries to expose Madame, but not before a shocking revelation. Packed with fascinating period details about the Victorian spiritualist craze, Hooper’s suspenseful tale delivers authentic characters, bizarre encounters, plot twists and romance.

Intriguing, savory Victorian chiller. (author’s note; historical notes; bibliography) (Historical fiction. 12 & up)

LEMONADE MOUTH PUCKERS UP

Hughes, Mark Peter Delacorte (304 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | PLB $19.99 Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-385-73712-8 978-0-307-97439-6 e-book 978-0-385-90647-0 PLB The continuing, shambolic adventures of Rhode Island’s rockingest trumpet-and-ukelele–based quintet finds plenty of sweet to balance out the sour (Lemonade Mouth, 2007).

It’s summer, and although each of the band’s five members— Olivia, Charlie, Mo, Wen and Stella—have jobs, they compose and record new songs in their friend Lyle’s garage studio. Their performance at Cranston’s Chowder Fest attracts the attention of legendary agent Earl Decker, who tries to mold the group into a chart-topping indie phenom, paying for an expensive, moody photo shoot and studio time. He also secures them an audition on American Pop Sensation, where the gutsy teens stand up to the mean-spirited judges. When video of their judge-scolding incident—sure to inspire the many compulsive watchers of Simon Cowell to punch the air in solidarity—goes viral and combines with their philosophical objections to being Photoshopped in a sponsor’s ad, Lemonade Mouth fires Earl in favor of remaining true to their convictions. The band’s independent, quirky journey is conveyed through the diary entries, letters, transcribed interviews and screenplay excerpts that form the narrative—and that promise at least one more chapter in the band’s imaginary history.

Warmhearted and innocently wild, this stand-alone sequel will find appreciative fans among teen music obsessives and social activists. (Fiction. 12-15)

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DEAD MAN’S HAND

Jones, Eddie Zonderkidz (224 pp.) $7.99 paperback | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-310-72344-8 Series: Caden Chronicles, 1 When his family decides to spend their vacation at a ghost-themed oldWest tourist trap, Nick is not enthusiastic, but when, minutes after their arrival, he discovers a dead body in a barn, he

perks up.

Nick has a passion for detection aided by the Internet and has formed a group that calls itself the Cyber Sleuths, which uses analysis of television shows to solve crimes. This is Book 1 of a proposed series and is as preposterous as any TV crime show. At 14, Nick is both determined to uncover a murderer and easily distracted—by a girl, the need to be right and attempts at humor. Unevenly written and riddled with Nick’s irritating asides as well as seemingly random Bible verses, not much works here, least of all the mystery. Adding in rattlesnakes, bears, revolvers and deadly attacks with a shovel from a mysterious someone who is simultaneously packing a revolver doesn’t bring it up to snuff. The pace is meant to be fast, and it is. But by focusing on speed, it is often annoyingly vague—much like the younger sister who whines and nags whenever she appears, for no apparent plot-based reason.

Just the ticket for a class on how not to write an adventure story. (Suspense. 10-14)

MIDDLE GROUND

Kacvinsky, Katie Houghton Mifflin (336 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 20, 2012 978-0-547-86336-8 In this sequel to Awaken (2011), Maddie’s rebellion against digital school and social networking run amok land her in a detention center where detainees are conditioned to fear physical contact and transformed into pliant consumers content to conduct their lives online.

In 2060, Americans live an increasingly virtual existence (think “Half-Life”). Kids attend school from the safety of their bedrooms. Nightclub partygoers dance and interact through sophisticated digital avatars. Online funerals console the bereaved through forums and photos, rather than the warmth of human contact. Incarcerated, Maddie stubbornly fights the powerful conditioning. She’s supported by allies new and old, especially charismatic rebel Justin, her romantic and political partner in the fight to experience the sensory world directly.

Over time, Maddie grows weaker; continued resistance results in an ever-longer sentence that she’s unlikely to survive. Independent, courageous and immensely likable, Maddie is the

heart of this story. Human contact unmediated by sterile, digitized perfection is messy, imperfect and even dangerous, but she’s willing to pay the price. If Kacvinsky’s wider worldbuilding remains sketchy, with frustratingly few panoramic shots of the culture at large, there are compensations. Seen in close-up, Maddie’s sensuous, suspenseful voyage of discovery offers an intense, emotionally charged snapshot of the future that’s rare in science fiction.

Lyrical, provocative, passionate and thought-provoking. (Science fiction/romance. 12 & up)

SPEED OF LIGHT

Kizer, Amber Delacorte (544 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | PLB $19.99 Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-385-74114-9 978-0-375-98428-0 e-book 978-0-375-98987-2 PLB Series: Meridian, 3 The third time lacks all charm.

Following a prologue that recaps the first two Meridian novels, this disappointing finale picks up soon after the wounding of Nocti Ms. Asura and the destruction of her pseudo–foster-care home. Chapters alternate between Meridian, who now dreams of growing old with Tens and prepares to assist her elderly, dying friend, Faye, and fellow Fenestra Juliet. Juliet must work through her anger and mistrust and desperately wants to find the remains of her dead parents.

While danger from the Nocti seems imminent to the characters, especially when Juliet agrees to exchange information about those who work for the Light for the location of her parents, readers must wait…and wait…and wait for any action. Bogged down by the characters’ day-to-day minutiae, the story crawls at a snail’s pace until Meridian and her ring of friends tackle the Nocti at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Even then, the battle is tedious, predictable and ultimately disappointing. The introduction of Juliet’s possible dyslexia and the arrival of a new female Protector from Iran and possible issues of sexuality are broached but never explored.

The conclusion to the series will draw a sigh—of relief.

(Supernatural. 13 & up)

FLASH POINT

Kress, Nancy Viking (512 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 8, 2012 978-0-670-01247-3 In an idea-packed near-future thriller, reality TV pits teens against increasingly deadly virtual traps.

Amy Kent is only 16, and she’s boneweary of the responsibility of supporting

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her resentful younger sister and terminally ill Gran. But the global economic collapse has left most people in desperate straits, so when Amy gets a chance for good pay with family medical benefits, she grabs at it despite her doubts. As one of seven teenagers on Who Knows People, Baby—You?, she is under constant camera surveillance that allows viewers to compete to predict how each cast member will respond to unexpected situations. But as ratings pressures and political tensions mount, the scenarios become more dangerous, and Amy and the rest become less and less certain of what is staged, what is real and whom to trust. The theme of corrupt adults manipulating youth into violence and death to entertain a decadent audience will inevitably invite comparisons to the Hunger Games trilogy, as will the breakneck, twisty plot. The day-after-tomorrow setting, anchored by brand-name allusions and crises ripped from the headlines, adds both eerie familiarity and terrifying plausibility.

Most striking, though, is the complex characterization, with its emphatic insistence that no one—hero or villain—is anything less than a complicated mixture of good and bad, strength and weakness, compassion and selfishness.

While the adrenaline rush will draw readers in, it’s the unsettling question posed by the program title that will linger. (Science fiction. 14 & up)

THE FUTURE WE LEFT BEHIND

Lancaster, Mike A. Egmont USA (384 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-60684-410-6 978-1-60684-411-3 e-book

This sequel to Human.4 (2012) portrays a not-exactly-science-y future.

Peter is the son of the man who saved the world by inventing robot bees. Destined by his wealthy genius father for a future in science, Peter rebels against both by enrolling in a literature class and befriending Alpha, a girl in a wacky religious cult. Alpha is a Strakerite, following the ancient tapes of Kyle Straker. Kyle and his girlfriend Lilly believed humans are regularly upgraded by aliens. Skeptical at first, Peter is soon convinced; if it doesn’t make sense that humans could have evolved the Link that acts as a telepathic Internet, then clearly it must be because Kyle was right about everything. Peter investigates: Is his father hiding something about the Straker tapes? Alpha has a job, too, even though she’s a girl: “Every upgrade has a Kyle and it has a Lilly,” Peter’s father explains. “…The Lilly paradigm follows her Kyle into the fire.” In choppy prose, Peter takes a journey of bad science and flawed logic in the hopes of saving the world. Despite logic-leaping plot development (which disconcertingly mirrors contemporary political arguments about evolution and “intelligent design”), Peter’s world contains some compelling science-fictional window dressing: not just robot bees but downloadable clothing and filaments allowing direct human-to-computer uplink.

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Technology aside, this future looks unimaginatively like the present, from university curriculum to social structures. (Science fiction. 12-16)

VELVETEEN

Marks, Daniel Delacorte (464 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | PLB $20.99 Oct. 9, 2012 978-0-385-74224-5 978-0-307-97432-7 e-book 978-0-375-99051-9 PLB A tedious tale of teens in purgatory suffers from clumsy prose, erratic worldbuilding, and an overabundance of char-

acters and plotlines.

After being kidnapped, tortured and murdered by a serial killer called Bonesaw, Velvet is a bitter, defensive soul. She works on purgatory’s Salvage team, retrieving trapped souls from the world of the living, and illegally sneaks back to haunt Bonesaw in her spare time. Meanwhile, a group of Departurists want to start a revolution, and destructive shadowquakes, caused by magic use among the living, grow increasingly common. The prose has a stylized, slick feel characterized by halfbaked, stream-of-consciousness humor (“Blind?....Hungover?

Either seemed a possible explanation for wearing sunglasses at night, or possibly a nod to crappy eighties songs”). Many themes show up only briefly: Velvet’s pre-death love of cinema, for instance, or certain souls’ addiction to huffing the gas used for lighting lamps. In general, the worldbuilding leaves a distracting number of questions unanswered: Against what kind of government are the Departurists rebelling, and why is a rule breaker like Velvet immediately certain they’re wrong? If the dead can no longer eat or smoke, how can they kiss?

A few illuminating details eventually emerge, but not enough to make the slog through purgatory worth it. (Fantasy. 14-18)

I, WITNESS

McClintock, Norah Illus. by Deas, Mike Orca (144 pp.) $16.95 paperback | Oct. 1, 2012 978-1-55469-789-2 If it means putting yourself in danger, do you have to come forward as a witness?

Teenager David Boone and his friend Robbie witness a brutal murder. Boone talks Robbie out of going to the cops, and a few days later, Robbie’s killed in a drive-by. Boone and their friend Andre witness Robbie’s killing, but neither is willing to talk to the cops. When Boone is wounded and Andre killed at Robbie’s funeral, Boone

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“The subgenre combining sleuthing with characters who have Asperger syndrome gets a new entry offering humor and interesting historical and scientific connections…” from colin fisher

is well and truly scared. Boone’s classmates call him coward; his dad sends him to a therapist. Detective Rylander practically begs him for help, but it takes another, unrelated murder to prompt Boone to come forward as a witness. Award-winning, Canadian writer of teen thrillers McClintock tries her hand at the graphic format with mixed results. Boone’s reasons for not coming forward are complex and interesting, but most of the supporting cast members are one-dimensional. The mystery Boone solves surrounding the unrelated murder will engage more than Boone’s repeated resistance to being a witness. Deas’ scratchy, mostly black-and-white panels look more like sketchbook filler than finished work; the characters are often hard to identify, and their emotions, not to mention ages, are difficult to gauge. However, the use of red as an accent in moments of violence is effective.

Bodies pile up around Boone like he’s some teenage Jessica Fletcher, straining credulity but not sparking much interest. (Graphic thriller. 13 & up)

COLIN FISCHER

Miller, Ashley Edward; Stentz, Zack Razorbill/Penguin (226 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 8, 2012 978-1-59514-578-9 The subgenre combining sleuthing with characters who have Asperger syndrome gets a new entry offering humor and interesting historical and scientific connections—but the narrative viewpoint drifts unsettlingly.

Colin begins high school with a cheat sheet to decipher facial expressions, but he no longer uses a “shadow,” an adult to help him navigate the social landscape. The hallway’s crowded (Colin hates touch); the bathroom sign is blue (a color he dislikes); and Wayne (who’s been bullying him for years) dunks his head in the toilet. As the plot unfolds—bullying, Colin’s arithmetical approach to basketball, birthday cake and a real gun going off in the cafeteria—Colin tracks everything in his notebook (facts only). Many entries end with this plan: “Investigate.”

As a sleuth, Colin’s sharply observant, his discoveries impressive. The gun mystery doesn’t frighten him: “Wayne Connelly is innocent, and I will prove it. The game is afoot.” Disconcertingly, the narrative voice conveys some of Colin’s thoughts but also some of his parents’ and Wayne’s; sometimes it aligns itself with Colin’s perspective, sometimes it describes him from the outside (“her irony as lost on Colin as it usually was”).

Omniscience is one thing, authorial convenience another. This mobile narrative allegiance makes it hard to pinpoint whether the Asperger humor is from Colin or about him.

Entertaining, but confused about its point of view. (Fiction. 11-16)

SECRETS AND LIES

Monroe, Ella St. Martin’s Griffin (304 pp.) $9.99 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-312-62305-0 Series: Capital Girls, 2 In Washington, politics permeates everything, even the relationships of its adolescents in this second installment in the Capital Girls series.

This sequel assumes knowledge of major events in the first book and of characters introduced earlier as well. The story mostly follows Jackie, girlfriend to the female president’s son Andrew and daughter to her chief of staff; Laura Beth, daughter of the resolutely Southern widow of a major Republican operative; Whitney, who enjoys manipulating her friends even more than do the others; and Lettie, daughter of unaccountably financially poor parents. All except Lettie come across as privileged, spoiled, scheming and selfish and, frankly, may be difficult for readers to like. The convoluted plot turns on a car accident from the previous book; only the girls know that Andrew was driving at the time. Now someone is stalking Jackie, so she stays at the White House for safety. Monroe (a pseudonym for two co-authors) throws in the obligatory chick-lit focus on fashion, swerving the narrative to New York so Jackie can model for a famous designer, and label-drops with abandon. The broad emphasis of the book, however, appears to be the politics, in a general sense, inherent in the rivalries among the girls. The crowded plots and subplots create confusion amid the hope that these uber-sophisticated, entitled girls never take the reins of government.

Chick-lit on steroids. (Chick-lit. 12-16)

SO THE SIGN SAID

Osteen, Natasha Moonshine Cove Publishing (232 pp.) $12.49 paperback | Oct. 19, 2012 978-1-937327-07-1 New York City girl goes to small-town Texas. Comedy and romance ensue.

When Jordan’s crazy uncle Jacob is arrested in China for smuggling Bibles, her divinity-professor father decides to fill in at his church for the summer, dragging Jordan and her corporate-lawyer mother along with him. The town of Ashworth has the usual collection of quirky eccentrics: supertalented Latino youth-group leader and chef; little-old-lady bookkeeper and gambler; perky, blonde, hedgehog-toting wannabe superstar; hot, brooding boy librarian and bottlewasher; redneck bad boy; etc. While her father inflicts his university-level theology lectures (complete with PowerPoint) on his brother’s flock every week and her mother goes Stepford after losing her biggest client, Jordan slowly succumbs to the charms of Ashworth, particularly those of Knox, the brooding

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“Berry seamlessly infuses each successive spread with waves of the characteristically intense, almost excessively vivid, explosive color of the Fauves’ palette.” from colorful dreamer

boy with tragedy in his past. While Osteen’s debut breaks no new ground in the plot department and at times struggles with characterization and language, it nevertheless has its fair share of good one-liners. As Jordan’s father lectures her about the proper use of “y’all,” she reflects that “now, rather than hanging out in Greenwich Village, I had to concern myself with incorrect country bumpkin grammar.”

These comic turns of phrase and the novel’s palpable warmth should win it some fans, particularly among readers who like their romance on the sweet, not steamy side.

(Fiction. 12-16)

COLORFUL DREAMER The Story of Artist Henri Matisse Parker, Marjorie Blain Illus. by Berry, Holly Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 8, 2012 978-0-8037-3758-7

Matisse’s genius was that he never stopped exploring even as he honored his intense childhood dreams of creativity, color and art.

Parker’s text is a pitch-perfect and appealing narrative, but the real star here is Berry’s art. She first offers careful, almost tight, school-notebooklike drawings of French cities and interiors that effectively convey the gray and noncreative aspects of Matisse’s childhood, relieved only by his colorful daydreams.

After leaving his small town and working as a law clerk in Paris, Henri was freed from the prison of social convention through his mother’s simple gift of a paint box (to pass the time while convalescing from a serious illness). He then exuberantly embraced his life as an artist. Berry seamlessly infuses each successive spread with waves of the characteristically intense, almost excessively vivid, explosive color of the Fauves’ palette.

She ingeniously incorporates much of Matisse’s now-iconic imagery (goldfish, Mediterranean rugs, busy fabrics, Tahitian jungle palm fronds, lemons, leaves, strong geometric shapes, stars and much more). Parker and Berry finally combine to movingly present the methods, meaning and passion that propelled Matisse’s later work—simple cutouts in bright monochromatic papers.

This inspiring and accessible picture book serves as a brilliant introduction to one artist’s vitality. The message?

Like Matisse we must never stop creating and experimenting. (author’s note, list of museums with Matisse artwork) (Picture book/biography. 3-5)

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UNPLUGGED Ella Gets Her Family Back

Pedersen, Laura Illus. by Weber, Penny Tilbury House (32 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 15, 2012 978-0-88448-337-3

In a flavorless alternative to Matthew Cordell’s Hello! Hello! (2012), young Ella concocts a scheme to wean her distracted family from their digital devices.

Ella comes down the stairs expecting promised blueberry waffles for breakfast, some fancy braiding from older sister Maya and a brisk round of Hangman from brother Carlos. None of this is forthcoming, as Mom is on the cell and hurrying off to work, Maya is texting friends as she dashes out, and Carlos is absorbed in a video game. Even Dad, hunched over his laptop, is only good for a vague two-fingered wave. All right, then: After school that afternoon, Ella determinedly scours the house for chargers and power cords and proceeds to hold them hostage— explaining “I just want my family back. I want things to be like they were before you all got so plugged in.” In instant and unlikely capitulation, everyone smilingly agrees to breakfast together every morning from then on and regular “unplugged” time on weekends. Depicting a blandly smiling, biracial family in a comfortable suburban setting, Weber endows Ella with an appealingly shiny face and wildly curly hair, but other figures have frozen, sometimes off-kilter features.

A timely premise, but young readers who think that Ella’s strategy will work for them are in for an unpleasant surprise. (Picture book. 6-8)

HERE WHERE THE SUNBEAMS ARE GREEN

Phillips, Helen Delacorte (304 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | PLB $20.99 Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-385-742368 978-0-307-97487-7 e-book 978-0-375-99056-4 PLB

When Madeleine and Ruby visit the supergreen rain-forest resort where their ornithologist father has been employed to find endangered species, they find him distressingly changed—and maybe contributing to a bird’s extinction.

The mystery of the Weirdness that began after their father wrote them with his REALLY GOOD NEWS deepens when the family arrives from Colorado. The luxury La Lava spa doesn’t allow children, so the girls, 12 and 9, and their mother will be staying nearby at Selva Lodge. When they finally see their father, after six months apart, he doesn’t seem to care about them at all. Their mother, after daily yoga sessions at the spa, is unbelievably calm and incurious. It is their 14-yearold baby sitter and Spanish tutor, golden-eyed Kyle, who

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teams up with them to explore their jungle surroundings and find and save the last of the Lava-Throated Volcano trogons, already formally declared extinct. In her first novel for young readers, Phillips demonstrates a keen understanding of sibling dynamics as well as love for the lush tropical setting. The girls are believably awed and attracted by the spa’s lavish accommodations for the superrich, frightened by the hint of evil underneath and made uneasy but enchanted by the magic that surrounds them.

More fantasy than magical realism, this eco-adventure maintains its mystery and suspense right up to the end.

(Adventure. 9-13)

BLACK CITY

Richards, Elizabeth Putnam (384 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-399-15943-5 Eyes will roll.

Ash is a scorned twin-blood Darkling—hybrid son of a human and a vampire—who hustles Haze, the drug that occurs naturally in Darkling venom, to the addicted human youth of Black City.

Natalie is all human, daughter of Black City’s newly returned Emissary, local head of the national government that just won a bitter war against the Darklings and is committed to racial purity. When they meet under a bridge after Natalie slips her security detail, Natalie’s heart skips a beat. So does Ash’s, which is seriously weird, because twin-bloods’ hearts don’t beat at all. (Full Darklings have two hearts, one of the book’s many arbitrary and wholly unconvincing quirks of biology.)

They meet again at school; they engage in pro forma animosity; they realize they love each other. While this narrative arc is entirely predictable, at least it is relatively short—but into the mix are thrown political upheaval, a murder mystery, a contagious wasting disease, brutality against animals, parental infidelity, steamy near-sex scenes, vivisection and public crucifixions, along with grindingly obvious parallels to Nazism and the American skinhead movement. Copious infodumps do not compensate for slipshod worldbuilding. There is as little nuance to the relationships as everything else; in addition to the ludicrous destiny that binds Natalie and Ash, friendships dissolve and come back together with all the subtlety of a preschool playground.

Bloated and banal. (Paranormal romance. 14-16)

BARTHOLOMEW BIDDLE AND THE VERY BIG WIND

Ross, Gary Illus. by Myers, Matthew Candlewick (96 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-7636-4920-3 Hollywood headliner Ross, who shepherded to the big screen blockbusters such as Big, Seabiscuit, Pleasantville and, most recently, The Hunger Games, here takes flight with his first poetic venture involving a bedsheet, a boy and a whole lot of imagination.

When a magical “Grandaddy of Winds” blows through the town of Fairview, 10-year-old Bartholomew Biddle grabs the sheet off his bed and thrillingly lofts into the night sky. The wind first spirits Bart to a tropical island, where he befriends some gnarly-looking pirates who turn out to be sweet and generous and learns appearances aren’t necessarily what they seem.

“You’d have to be daft,” admonishes one of the pirates, “to go through this life / judging books by their covers. / If you jump to conclusions, / what’s left to discover?” On his next flight, Bart makes the acquaintance of one Densmore Horatio Pool, a boy of similar age who longs to fly but initially lacks Bart’s courage to “dare to be daring / when no one will dare you.” Densy eventually defies convention, using a school banner to fly to meet Bart, whose third adventure has landed him in a windless canyon where the formerly fearless inhabitants are now literally “stuck in the doldrums.” Throughout this witty verse novella, themes of self-reliance, kindness and a belief in all things in moderation resound, and Myers’ enchanting, richly textured oils heighten the serious fun spurring the lighthearted didacticism.

With a seductively Seuss-ean cadence, Ross’ verse adventure delightfully dares young and old to seize the day.

(Verse fantasy. 6-11)

SKIPPYJON JONES CIRQUE DE OLÉ

Schachner, Judy Illus. by Schachner, Judy Dial (32 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-8037-3782-2 Series: Skippyjon Jones, 7

“Circus berserkus!” Skippyjon Jones heads for the big top!

Everyone’s favorite-ito Siamese kitty boy (who thinks he’s a Chihuahua) returns for his seventh full-length picture-book outing. This time he’s high-wire obsessed, much to Mama Junebug Jones’ chagrin. He performs tail-tingling tricks on the telephone wire, entertaining his sisters and the squirrels but distressing Mama. After a talking to, he’s shut in his room… but that never confines this “Chi-wu-lu.” He creates a disguise and escapes through his closet (read: imagination) to the “circus pooch-ito” to perform with his Chihuahua buddies, los

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chimichangos. They recruit him (after pumping up his músculos with a bike pump) to be the bottom of their tower of Chihuahuas. However, Putzi Shtrungleboot the Shtrongdog isn’t happy that they borrowed his costume, and he sends Skippito Friskito soaring up to the trapezes and safely home (via a cannon shot).

Schachner’s latest is full of the same Spanglish wordplay, sly tongue-in-cheek humor and frenetic acrylic-and-ink illustrations of her previous titles. Some of the word humor will soar over the heads of Skippyjon’s fan base, but they won’t mind; the language sounds so infectious when read correctly. Thankfully, an included CD read by the author with music and sound effects offers an example for parents and librarians forced into multiple readings.

Olé, muchachos! Skippyjon Jones the handsome daredevilito! (Picture book. 4-8)

PERRY’S KILLER PLAYLIST

Schreiber, Joe Houghton Mifflin (224 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-547-60117-5

The stunning assassin returns, heaping chaos on her lovably obtuse musician as he struggles to complete a European tour (Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick, 2011).

Perry Stormaire has had an amazing three months: a new girlfriend, Paula; a touring band gig in Europe; and no sign of Gobi, the Lithuanian assassin who blew up his house. While in Venice, Perry finds himself drawn to a prearranged meeting spot where both a hit squad and Gobi are waiting for him. On the run from assassins and police, Gobi and Perry trek across Italy, Switzerland, and France to clean up the killers and find Perry’s missing family. Schreiber endows loyal Perry and deadly Gobi with strong characterization, but dependence on action clichés and stilted dialogue hamstring this book, as with the earlier title. Perry is more self-aware, making him less of a hapless victim and more of a reluctant sidekick, one whose strong sense of loyalty compels him to tough out dangerous and ridiculous events. Gobi’s vulnerability is a welcome change from her near-robotic, practically superhuman performance. Despite the plethora of explosions, back-stabbings and secret identities, there are some touching moments between the two protagonists as bullets fly by. The narrative ends with a sense of completion, but it won’t prevent Schreiber from breaking out his espionage duo for future endeavors.

An action blockbuster in print form: loud, fun and entirely forgettable. (Thriller. 14 & up)

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ROBBERS! True Stories of the World’s Most Notorious Thieves

Schroeder, Andreas Illus. by Simard, Rémy Annick Press (160 pp.) $21.95 | paper $12.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-55451-441-0 978-1-55451-440-3 paperback Series: It Actually Happened

Schroeder chronicles eight high-profile criminals or crimes, mostly highbrow, a couple low-down and dirty.

It is difficult to think of these thieves as bad guys, so cunning and audacious were the crimes. A few are full of brio and dash, from the theft of the Mona Lisa to the parachuting hijacker D.B. Cooper, and a couple are solidly in the suavesophisticated vein, like Willie Sutton and second-story man Arthur Barry. Others are just all business, like the Laguna Niguel heist or England’s Great Train Robbery, or sheer thuggery: Victor Desmarais and Leo Martial’s Canadian robbery fiasco. Schroeder provides enough detail to get readers involved in more than a sensationalist manner, even delving into some strange psychological consequences of a life in thievery, and Simard sprinkles the action with mostly minimalist panels, all in shades of gray, but with a fun geometrical stylization. The narratives are light, yet full of the devilish details that often sink the best-laid plans, but not frivolous or unaware of their larger context. These are crimes, after all, and hardly of the Robin Hood variety: Barry may have targeted the rich, but the poor didn’t benefit. Plus, almost always, guns were involved. Even Sutton, the most benign of highwaymen, quipped, “You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality.”

Our fascination with outlaws lives on in this selection of cleverboots and artful dodgers. (bibliography, index, further reading) (Nonfiction. 9-12)

LIVE THROUGH THIS

Scott, Mindi Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $16.99 | paper $9.99 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-1-4424-4059-3 978-1-4424-4060-9 paperback Dance-team prestige, loyal friends, affluent Seattle family—Coley, 15, seems to have it all, but her sunny persona hides a private, nighttime dread.

Coley’s blossoming romance with Reece makes it harder to separate those worlds, and her gift for walling off the unpleasant—like the rift with her longtime best friend, Alejandra—isn’t working. With her overprotective mother and stepfather, ally and troubled older brother, Bryan, and younger triplet half siblings, Coley feels smothered, not safe. When Reece is permitted to join the family ski trip to Whistler, B.C., Coley finds that her

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“Distinct from run-of-the-mill argument arcs requiring apology before reconciliation, this alternate model provokes thought.” from hey, presto!

childhood strategy of quiet endurance, rather than preventing the abuse, enables it to escalate. What makes this more than another “problem” novel is the author’s steadfast refusal to deal in stereotypes and easy answers. Coley’s more than the victim of sexual abuse—just as her abuser is more than a collection of abusive behaviors. Who we are and what we do are different things. Oversimplifying character motivations would have made this a less harrowing read but also a less powerful one.

Unraveling her thicket of tangled emotions is a confusing and painful journey for Coley, but the bedrock truth she uncovers sustains her: Freedom from molestation is a human right.

Required reading for anyone who’s ever wondered “why didn’t they just tell someone?” (resources [not seen]) (Fiction. 14 & up)

LA MALINCHE The Princess Who Helped Cortés Conquer the Aztec Empire Serrano, Francisco Illus. by Serrano, Pablo Groundwood (40 pp.) $18.95 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-1-55498-111-3

Another collaborative effort by the team that created The Poet King of Tezcoco: A Great Leader of Ancient Mexico (2007) chronicles the life of a controversial figure in pre-colonial Mesoamerica.

The indigenous woman who would serve as Hernán Cortés’ interpreter and companion was born in the early 1500s as Malinali and later christened Marina. She is now called La Malinche.

Besides serving as translator to the Spaniard, she also gave him advice on native customs, religious beliefs and the ways of the Aztec. While Marina’s decision to help the Spanish in their often brutal quest for supremacy has led to many negative associations, others see her as the mother of all Mexicans, as she and Cortés had the first recorded mestizo. Although many of the details surrounding the specifics of Marina’s life were unrecorded, Serrano strengthens the narrative with quotations by her contemporaries and provides a balanced look at the life of a complicated, oft-maligned woman. Headers provide structure as events sometimes shift from the specific to the very broad, and some important facts are glossed over or relegated to the timeline. Reminiscent of pre-colonial documents, the illustrations convey both Marina’s adulation of Cortés and the violence of the Spanish conquest, complete with severed limbs, decapitations and more.

An inventive introduction to a fascinating historical figure. (map, chronology, glossary, sources and further reading) (Nonfiction. 10-12)

HEY, PRESTO!

Shireen, Nadia Illus. by Shireen, Nadia Knopf (32 pp.) $16.99 | PLB $19.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-375-86905-1 978-0-375-96905-8 PLB A magic act goes temporarily awry when a bossypants walks all over his best mate.

Presto is a sweet-looking, big-headed, blue cat. Monty’s probably a dog, with brown fur and a big snout. They “didn’t have much, but it didn’t matter. They were best friends and they were happy.” They do look happy in their alley, complete with trash can, suitcase and two cardboard boxes; however, googly eyes hint at upcoming relational inequality. Monty grandstands, waving a bone and crossing his eyes at nobody in particular, while Presto gazes straight at him adoringly. When they perform a public magic show, it’s Presto’s technical magic expertise that makes showman Monty shine. Then Monty’s ego grows until he’s so self-centered and domineering that a dejected Presto must walk away, leaving Monty to fail in his biggest show ever. (Media-savvy kids may call shenanigans on a magic show being “on television”—couldn’t it be just digital fakery?) Watching TV, Presto sees Monty’s presentation collapsing and “c[a] n’t bear it.” He returns, and they make up. Shireen’s glossy multimedia artwork has a cheery, two-dimensional feeling. Visual jokes (Monty reads Easy Peasy Magic upside down), speech bubbles (“Hey, Presto! Get me chocolate ice cream, with extra sprinkles—now!”), and the technique behind Presto’s tricks add to interest.

Distinct from run-of-the-mill argument arcs requiring apology before reconciliation, this alternate model provokes thought. (Picture book. 4-7)

HOLLYWOOD HIGH

Simone, Ni-Ni; Abrams, Amir Kensington (288 pp.) $9.95 paperback | Oct. 1, 2012 978-0-7582-6317-9 Four spoiled daughters of AfricanAmerican entertainment-industry elite engage in constant posturing, cheating and back-stabbing as they attend exclusive Hollywood High.

The story is told in four not-entirelydistinct voices, including ex–New Yorker London, tabloid queen Rich and Rich’s “ex-ex-ex-years ago-ex-bff ” Spencer. Heather, the most sympathetic of the bunch, supports her alcoholic mother with her own acting career and struggles with an Adderall addiction. Drama escalates practically within milliseconds: Spencer gets a neck rash from a perfume Heather’s mother gave her; Spencer Maces Heather in the cafeteria in retaliation; the head of Heather’s fan club joins the fight; the story goes viral within hours...and that’s just the beginning. Much of the

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“Despite prose weaknesses, this space adventure with spectacular settings demonstrates that sometimes you can’t keep a good plot down.” from apollo’s outcasts

drama involves competition over boys, and although Heather sets another series of fights and PR nightmares in motion by secretly videotaping one girl cheating with another’s boyfriend, she is never revealed as the source of the video. One girl ends up pregnant, musing, distressingly, “If only he knew [a condom] made no difference.” Because conflict runs at a constant fever pitch, there is no real arc to the story, and neither a minor character’s suicide attempt nor a hasty truce among three of the girls provides much resolution.

More messy than juicy; for gossip-blog devotees only.

(Chick-lit. 12-16)

KITTY HAWK

Smith, Roland Sleeping Bear Press (256 pp.) $15.95 | paper $8.95 | Oct. 15, 2012 978-1-58536-605-7 978-1-58536-604-0 paperback Series: I, Q, 3 In the third book of a spy-and-terrorist–jammed series, breathless pacing helps to minimize several flaws.

The president’s daughter has been kidnapped by a secret group of terrorists. Hot on their trail are teenagers Q and his new stepsister, Angela, and a large enough gathering of other agents on the good-guy side to make a score card helpful for keeping track. Among them are Malak, Angela’s mother, who has gone undercover and is pretending to be a member of the “ghost cell,” and Boone and his aged dog, Croc, who share some supernatural capabilities from an unexplained source. Complicating the chase down Interstate 95 is a Category 1 hurricane that seems to function merely as a device to provide bad weather for the first part of the chase, a suspicion underscored by the fact that it leaves nearly insignificant aftereffects just hours later, when most of the action occurs near where the hurricane made landfall.

An awkwardly complex explanation of some of the relationships and past history of the series is offered, but it is confusing, making starting with the first book advisable. Mostly told in the wry first-person voice of Q, the narrative occasionally switches to third person from several other characters’ points of view, including that of John Masters, who was featured in another Smith series, Storm Runners.

Breathless and exciting, but no more substantial than smoke from a spy’s revolver. (Thriller. 11-14)

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APOLLO’S OUTCASTS

Steele, Allen Pyr/Prometheus Books (312 pp.) $16.95 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-1-61614-686-3 Despite prose weaknesses, this space adventure with spectacular settings demonstrates that sometimes you can’t keep a good plot down.

One August night in 2097, in suburban Maryland, Jamey’s father wakes him at midnight and tells him to pack a bag and hurry. The family piles into their van, and Dad inches it down the street with headlights off. The president’s dead and the dangerous vice president’s detaining activist scientists like Dad, who intends to hide his kids “[t]he last place [the government would] ever think of looking”: Apollo colony, on the moon. But shuttle launches are no secret. Soon after the rushed launch, Navy jets and a missile barely miss taking them down. Jamey finds himself fighting propaganda campaigns and a lunar ground battle against the corrupt U.S. regime—all while getting accustomed to living on the moon, where, due to lower gravity, he can walk without his wheelchair for the first time. Nitty-gritty details about space travel, astronomy and lunar geography and geology (Apollo’s mines provide “the principal source of Earth’s energy reserves”) are fascinating yet tightly crammed and hard to decipher. Steele’s text is everfactual, which is alienating during emotional dialogue. But nothing beats learning what it’s like to walk around the moon and how the Earth appears from there.

Awkward prose notwithstanding, this is for anyone who’s gazed longingly upward. (Science fiction. 11-16)

PASSION BLUE

Strauss, Victoria Amazon Children’s Publishing (352 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-7614-6230-9 978-0-7614-6231-6 e-book Giulia is bright, curious and a gifted artist, born to a noble father and his humble mistress in 15th-century Renaissance Italy. Now her fate rests with her father’s widow, who’s sending Giulia to a Padua convent.

Desperate to avoid a cloistered life, Giulia obtains a talisman that’s promised to deliver her heart’s desire: marriage to a good man and a home of her own. Convent life is hard. Highborn nuns enjoy freedom; others, like Giulia, labor at menial tasks. When her artistic talent’s discovered, she’s invited to join the close-knit group of artist nuns whose renowned work helps support the convent. Guided by Maestra Humilità, daughter of a famous artist, Giulia begins to learn this exacting craft with tasks like mixing egg tempera. Artists create their own colors,

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their recipes closely guarded secrets. Humilità’s precious passion blue is one; its beauty draws Giulia like a flame. So do visions of love and freedom beyond convent walls. But stealing away to meet handsome Ormanno, another talented artist, is risky. Fantasy elements and a historical setting rich with sensuous detail are satisfying, but it’s Giulia’s achingly real search for her heart’s desire that resonates most today, when millions of girls still have limited choices.

A rare, rewarding, sumptuous exploration of artistic passion. (author’s note) (Historical fantasy. 12 & up)

WATERLOO & TRAFALGAR

Tallec, Olivier Illus. by Tallec, Olivier Enchanted Lion Books (64 pp.) $17.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-1-59270-127-8 The pointlessness of war, powerfully told despite having no words.

Two squat soldiers, one dressed in electric blue, the other in fluorescent orange, spy on each other from across a field by peering through their spyglasses. (Clever circle die cuts in the cover show readers exactly what each soldier sees through his lens.) The dumpy, little men sit, watch and wait. An incident involving a small snail escalates into a huge argument, but even then, they don’t attack. They just yell and shake their fists (black cartoon scribbles enliven the fury). Seasons pass, and snow and rain pour down, but still, the men watch and wait. Until one day a bird, half blue and half orange, finally forces them to come face to face. The two soldiers, Waterloo and Trafalgar, realize they are not as different as they thought.

In an added twist, when the perspective pans out to show the full surroundings, readers gain a delightful, surprising insight.

Tallec excels in expression; every movement, from scrunchedup anger to an exuberant grin, is meticulously planned, and these funny little soldiers show a wide range of emotion.

It is a truism that children represent the future—engaging stories about conflict resolution are necessary, and this one stands out. (Picture book. 5-10)

ASHES OF TWILIGHT

Tayler, Kassy St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $9.99 paperback | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-312-64178-8 Dystopian future plus steampunk plus romance: All these trendy ingredients are here plopped together in a plodding muddle.

Wren is a shiner, a coal miner whose family has lived in the bowels of the Earth for generations. When a comet threatened the world

back in 1878, the royals moved into a city domed in glass, bringing soldiers, servants and a workforce to keep their protected enclave powered. Two centuries have passed, and the world outside is still wreathed in flame—or so Wren has always been taught. But others in her world are convinced there’s a better life. Wren, during a forbidden outing in the domed city above the mines, finds the dying, horribly burned body of her friend Alex, the words “the sky is blue,” on his lips. Now Wren’s on the run from the authorities, hiding away with a dreamy, blue-eyed boy. There’s another boy, of course, but Wren doesn’t want this one, who’s at least partly responsible for the ever-present threat of sexual violence in her world. Wren can save the blue-eyed boy or protect her village; seek the blue sky or find safety in darkness. Maybe she can snuggle in a freezing cave for a long time while she thinks about it.

Successfully evokes the sightless, slow-moving, claustrophobic, ever-present darkness of dystopian coal mines—but is that a victory in a romantic adventure? (Steampunk. 14-16)

ETERNALLY YOURS

Tiernan, Cate Poppy/Little, Brown (460 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-316-03596-5 Series: Immortal Beloved, 3 The engaging final installment in the series that began with Immortal Beloved (2010) reveals new information about the world of the immortals and ties up loose ends.

After running away with her manipulative ex-friend Innocencio against everyone’s better judgment, recovering immortal socialite Nastasya has returned to the West Lowing, Mass., rehab center called River’s Edge. Although Nastasya’s narrative voice is still glib, prickly and often cynical, she has changed since the trilogy’s beginning: “I was far gone enough to admit that, yes, I really did need help....more than I needed to be proud, or brave, or cool, or even just not gut-wrenchingly humiliated.” River, the kindly and more-ancient-than-most immortal who runs River’s Edge, never gives up on Nastasya, but as her less-trusting siblings begin to arrive from around the world, suspicion about Nastasya’s intentions and behavior grows. Meanwhile, Nastasya and fellow immortal Reyn alternately kiss and fight; Nastasya starts a project to revitalize West Lowing’s mostly abandoned downtown; and destructive Terävä immortals wage an international war to seize power. As usual, the story’s most compelling aspect is Nastasya’s emotional growth, aided by River’s kind, patient and nonjudgmental tutelage. The sly, slangy narrative voice keeps the story moving, and flashbacks fill in some of the gaps around Nastasya’s and other immortals’ pasts.

A satisfying series-ender. (Fantasy. 12-18)

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h i a n m c d on a l d

be my enemy

Ian McDonald Pyr/Prometheus Books (280 pp.) $16.95 paperback Sep. 1, 2012 978-1-61614-678-8 Series: Everness, 2

We are not alone. More importantly, you’re not alone. There are many alternate versions of you out there—and one who just might be ready to take you down. At least, that’s the way of the scrupulously structured multiverse in book 2 of the Everness series, Be My Enemy.

Everett Singh, on a mission to reunite with his family and locate his missing father in the elaborate folds of parallel universes, is not just relentlessly pursued by Charlotte Villiers and the Order. A mechanically souped-up, alternate version of himself is also on his heels, just as eager to reunite with his own family and prepared—and equipped— to kill to achieve that goal. Action, adventure, striking characters and incredible clothes converge in a cerebral imagining of the multiverse as opposing teams scramble to save (or rule) the worlds.

Here, Ian McDonald confesses to finding character inspiration in musicians, recalls his fondness for pirates and drops plenty of hints about what’s in store for the series.

Q: In a world of gadgetry, science and math, the crew of the Everness has great respect for Sen Sixsmyth’s tarot card readings. Are they looking for answers in her cards or looking for reassurance?

Q: There’s no questioning that this is sci-fi, but there are certainly elements of a swashbuckling pirate adventure.

Are you a big fan of pirate tales?

A: Captain Anastasia would be very offended if you called her a pirate (and believe me, you don’t want that). She’s a trader. Everness is a commercial airship. Okay, she takes occasional shortcuts and plays fast and loose with what is legal, but that’s the nature of business. It’s not like she’s crashed 2274 | 1 October 2012 | children ’s

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Q: Charlotte Villiers is a cold, calculating villain. But she’s so... incredibly glamorous. Is it okay to be obsessed with her?

A: Of course—but she wouldn’t deign to look to you.

Glamorous—and strict. I got the idea for her from a review of a Goldfrapp concert. It said of Alison Goldfrapp: “No one ever hit a cow-bell so strictly”—and 1940s gear always looks very, very cool (and strict). Yet again, it’s easy for cosplay. My main physical model for her is the amazing Anna Calvi. [Charlotte]’s developing as a villain. The best villains, you don’t get it all at once. You’ll be finding out a whole lot more about Ms. Villiers and what she’s up to in Book 3. Let’s just say, she isn’t who she seems to be. But then again, no one is. The only person who is her equal is Everett— and eventually, he will run out of luck.

Q: Parallel worlds, alters, jump guns. How fastidiously did you have to rely on a blueprint of the world you’ve created to maintain order?

A: It’s evolving, and I’m keeping copious notes. I’ve plotted out the whole series arc in a fair amount of detail, and there is a lot of cool stuff to come (wait until you hit Earth 5!), but ideas come up while I’m writing. I’ve just written a scene in Book 3 (Empress of the Sun) where the Plenitude of Known Worlds moves [governmental] headquarters to Earth 8, and I had a cool idea for that parallel Earth. Everyone is an identical twin. More than an identical twin—in a real sense, they are one consciousness in two bodies.

No matter how far apart they go—even across universes—what one feels or sees, the other can experience as well. That’s the beauty of writing about parallel worlds—they can be very, very strange but still be recognizable as a version of our own world.

Eventually, if I get the time, I’d like to set up a website which is basically like an Encyclopedia of the Known Worlds of the Plenitude (and some of the yet-uncontacted worlds of the Panoply) where all the supplementary material can go.

—By Gordon West

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For the complete interview, visit our website at kirkus.com.

p h oto c o u rt esy o f K a r in e S t e p ha n

A: It’s the closest the crew come to a religion. Shared rituals are important—especially among small crews on ships. There are all kinds of superstitions about the sea and seafarers. I wanted to make Everness as much like a sailing ship as I could, a little society all of its own, lost in the immensity of the Panoply of All Worlds [the multiverse]. It’s a ship and a family in a sense, and families also have their own little superstitions and habits and customs. What Sen offers in the Everness tarot are patterns—shapes by which we may make sense of what is happening. They make you think about what’s happening and come up with ideas. They’re not so much about telling the future as clarifying thought. In Be My Enemy, they give Everett a very big and dangerous idea indeed, which I won’t tell you for fear of the spoiler demons.

But they’re not any recognized tarot deck—there are no suits, they’re all major trumps that Sen has invented herself (or inherited...).

the economy.... As a kid, I loved pirate movies— the life seemed to be free-wheeling and glamorous, and the clothes were great. In this series, clothes are important. Earth 3 is a weird combo of 1940s (think Jack Harkness in Torchwood) and mountainbike chic (Everett’s outfit). Every world has its fashion. And if the series ever really gets to asskicking sales levels, well, it’s really easy to cosplay.

The outfits are all meticulously described.

MONSTER TURKEY

Dov’s progressively ailing pet gecko. The author, also a neuropsychologist, emphasizes the strengths of talking through problems without being didactic.

Learning to focus on others, even in times of stress, Dov shows that bravery comes in many forms. (author’s note) (Fiction. 13 & up)

Trondheim, Lewis Illus. by Trondheim, Lewis Papercutz (32 pp.) $9.99 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-1-59707-349-3 Series: Monster, 4

Thanks to a flow of toxic waste that turns farm animals into monsters, a family’s rural vacation takes several exciting, if wildly arbitrary turns.

In their fourth outing, Petey, Jean, their parents and their own household monster Kriss arrive as guests at a farm that seems deserted at first but soon coughs up a giant bunny, a T. Rex–sized turkey and other toothy, red-eyed horrors. Joined by the friendly local farmer, himself turned into a sasquatch with mismatched eyes, the family tracks a suspicious pipeline to a factory where the monsters turn out to be a (wait for it) tomato researcher’s experimental subjects. In Trondheim’s small, unbordered cartoon scenes, the lumpy monsters (except for Kriss, who resembles a multilimbed turquoise Barbapapa) look properly menacing. In the end, after much chasing about, they turn out to be not such bad sorts—and though some monsters die in gruesome ways, the overall effect is more comical than disturbing or scary.

The tiny-type narrative text is hard to make out, but fans of Trondheim’s previous graphic tales will be used to his format. (Graphic fiction. 6-8)

NO MAN’S LAND

Underdahl, S.T. Flux (288 pp.) $9.99 paperback | Nov. 8, 2012 978-0-7387-3305-0 When survival seems worse than death.

Sixteen-year-old Dov Howard, a selfproclaimed emo kid, has gotten used to living in the shadow of his older brother, Brian, the local football hero. Enlisted in the National Guard in 2001, Brian suddenly finds himself on a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, and once again, Dov can’t measure up. Dov’s heartfelt and evenly paced first-person narration incorporates authentic dialogue and issues that matter to teens. He absorbs the problems of his fellow emo friends, braces against school bullies and wonders about new classmate Scarlett, who arrives with troubles of her own. After his family hears their worst fear—that Brian has been injured in an attack—they are relieved to discover that he survived the explosion. Dov is the first to notice the golden boy’s dark homecoming when Brian begins secretly drinking, experiences sleep disturbances, becomes depressed and exhibits other signs of PTSD. When his brother’s symptoms become life-threatening, Dov immediately takes control of the situation to get Brian the help he needs. Intermittent news headlines from the time foreshadow Brian’s downward spiral, as does

LET’S GO FOR A DRIVE!

Willems, Mo Illus. by Willems, Mo Hyperion (64 pp.) $8.99 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-1-4231-6482-1 Series: Elephant & Piggie

When Gerald the elephant and Piggie decide to go for a drive, they find that all the planning in the world can’t replace one crucial ingredient.

“Let’s go for a drive!” proposes Gerald; “That sounds fun!” agrees Piggie. “Drive! Drive! Drivey-drive-drive!” they chorus. Gerald, a touch on the OCD side, insists on a plan that includes a number of items: map, sunglasses, umbrellas, bags and, as there will be “a lot of driving on [their] drive,” a car. Oops. Piggie doesn’t have one; “[a] pig with a car would be silly.” Neither does Gerald. Whatever will they do? The dauntless duo’s 18th outing employs Willems’ award-winning formula: color-coded speech bubbles; lots of white space; endearing visual characterization (Gerald’s emotional journey as he realizes the tragedy a-borning is hysterical); effortless phonetic play; thoughtfully designed endpapers; silliness. The pair’s refrain incorporates each new element to Gerald’s plan in a way that is both classically childlike and slyly pedagogical. After “Map! Map! Mappy-map-map!” children will enjoy anticipating how sunglasses, umbrellas and bags will fit into that pattern—and likely start playing with other words as well.

Gerald and Piggie’s solution?

Typically elegant and entirely satisfying. Which describes the book as well. (Early reader. 4-8)

WAKING DRAGONS

Yolen, Jane Illus. by Anderson, Derek Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-1-4169-9032-1

Normally you don’t want to wake the dragon…

But even sleepy dragons need a little bit of prodding to open their eyes in the morning. An eager young knight and his faithful squirepuppy run around the bed, desperately tugging on blankets, dodging fiery yawns and heaving these great beasts off the mattress. Yolen is an expert on dinosaurs’ daily activities (How

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“Talk about your nontraditional families…” from little chick and mommy cat

Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, illustrated by Mark Teague, 2000, etc.) and can put monsters to bed (Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters, illustrated by Kelly Murphy, 2011), but what about dragons? Starting simply, with only a few words per page: “Dragons wake up. // Dragons rise. // Dragons open / dragon eyes.” Yolen then plays with the scansion, but she keeps the energetic beat throughout. Some rhymes may cause eye-rolling at first (“syrup” and “cheer up,” for example) but in the end come across as quite charming. The drippy, syrupy waffles catapulted into the dragons’ mouths are too darn adorable to resist.

Anderson’s bright acrylic illustrations round out the spare text with many added details and guffaws. Tooth brushing, breakfast and other cranky morning chores may have readers guessing that these dragons are off to school, but they have another very important reason for waking up.

Morning-routine stories abound, but for the very young this one bounces with exuberance. (Picture book. 2-4)

MY BEAUTIFUL FAILURE

Young, Janet Ruth Atheneum (320 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-4169-5489-7

This account of a teen suicidehotline volunteer is brimming with wry humor and whimsical charm, but as somber events unfold, that light tone feels uncomfortably inappropriate, as if it belongs to some other novel.

Last seen in The Opposite of Music (2007), the Morrison family has weathered father Bill’s mental breakdown. He’s painting again, confident he’s recovered, but Billy, 16, has doubts; he’s determined to prevent a repeat. Having immersed himself in psychology texts, Billy follows a friend’s suggestion to volunteer with the Listeners suicide hotline. Disappointingly, most callers prove merely lonely, bored, eccentric or sexually deviant. Then Jenney calls. Depressed, she’s dropped out of college; her therapist, Melinda, is guiding her to recover memories of parental abuse (readers will wonder if Melinda herself manufactured these). Jenney’s praise leads Billy to fantasize their future relationship and share his parental worries with her. Jenney herself never comes into focus; Billy’s character drives the story. He’s a case study in teen-psyche contradictions—self-centered and altruistic, grandiose and helpless—above all, agonizingly self-conscious. The Morrisons are vivid creations, though these sly, observant portraits may resonate better with adults than teens. Short chapters with enigmatic titles and abrupt, nonlinear shifts in storytelling combine to suggest a graphic novel missing its art. Young’s a talented original yet to find her niche.

Despite the clever characterizations, the title says it all.

(Fiction. 12 & up)

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REBEL HEART

Young, Moira McElderry (432 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 30, 2012 978-1-4424-3000-6 Series: Dustlands, 2 Good post-apocalyptic fiction raises questions about humankind’s capacity to learn from its mistakes, but this thinlyplotted second installment of the Dustlands trilogy is not up to the task.

Here, the common folk, with all the trappings of peasantry from centuries past, are lifted from their mean lives by shamans, sweat lodges and vision quests. Heroes and heroines rise from the ranks to battle the evil Tonton and their new leader, the Pathfinder, who’s set upon slaughtering the old and weak and creating a race of settlers for New Eden. Wrecker civilization has left car-strewn hillsides, imposing concrete buildings and wastelands for Saba and her motley crew to traverse. But Saba, with a price on her head, mostly wants to be left alone to ride west to reunite with her one true love, Jack—although she’s tempted by others along the way. Derivative plot elements, from the nine black-robed men on horseback to the Wraithway, are not helped by the progressively garbled syntax that connotes not so much a dialect as the well-worn trope of the noble savage. Saba finds the Wraithway filled with evidence of Wreckers’ “earth hate.…The skellentons of their buildins. The toppled chimleys,” a place haunted by “the spirits of earth an water.”

Where Blood Red Road (2011) was fast-paced and chaotic, this meandering book just bogs down. (Post-apocalyptic adventure. 12 & up)

LITTLE CHICK AND MOMMY CAT

Zafrilla, Marta Illus. by Hilb, Nora Cuento de Luz (32 pp.) $14.95 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-84-15-24196-6

Talk about your nontraditional families…Little Chick was just an egg when Mommy cat, who can’t have kittens of her own, adopted him from a hen with too many chicks to feed.

After he hatches, he thinks he is a cat like everyone around him. Mommy lets him know his “real” mother was a hen and promises to teach Chick everything he needs to know. Some of the neighborhood cats are a little too interested in Chick, but Mommy keeps him safe. When the other cats stare, Mommy tells him it’s because their family is different; Chick thinks being like everyone else would be boring. When he goes to bird school, his classmates ask many questions, like is it true his Mommy can’t fly? And does she really have a long tail? Chick has all the answers thanks to his Mommy cat. He thinks he has the best family in the world! Spanish poet and author Zafrilla and Argentine illustrator Hilb have crafted an excellent piece of bibliotherapy for adopted

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children. The bright, colored-pencil illustrations of pudgy chicks and cats add exuberance to the simply and wryly told tale.

Works equally well at promoting acceptance of differences and as a general read-aloud. (Picture book. 3-6)

wintertime picture -book round -up A PERFECT DAY

Berger, Carin Illus. by Berger, Carin Greenwillow/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-06-201580-8 A charmingly illustrated catalog of things to do in the snow, Berger’s latest nonetheless lacks a narrative to hold it together.

After a gentle snowstorm, people come out to enjoy some winter fun. “Emma got to make the first tracks in the snow… // but then Leo whooshed by on his skis. // Otto got lost in a deep drift. // Sasha and Max showered Oscar with a wild flurry of snowballs….” And so it continues—a loose collection of winter activities, characters’ names blending together and becoming meaningless in their sheer number—19 by the end, none repeating. They climb to the top of a snow mountain; build a fort and snowmen; sled; ice skate; make snow angels; and even open an icicle stand. As dusk descends, the warm lights guide them toward home, warm clothing and hot chocolate. The muted colors, clothing styles and sparse details in both the illustrations and the text lend this a retro feel that is echoed in the old-fashioned sleds and skates and the rustic, small-town setting. Berger’s now-trademark illustration style is much in evidence here, white ephemera providing a snowy backdrop, while collaged elements give a 3-D, scrapbook effect. Quirky characters sport pointed orange noses and round heads like snowmen, making each one seem like a combination person/bird.

With no story to follow, readers are not likely to ask for rereadings, however masterful the images. (Picture book. 2-5)

RABBIT’S SNOW DANCE

Bruchac, James; Bruchac, Joseph Illus. by Newman, Jeff Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 8, 2012 978-0-8037-3270-4

A long-tailed rabbit who wants a nibble of the highest, tastiest leaves uses his special snow song in the summertime, despite the protests of the other animals.

The Bruchacs’ Iroquois pourquoi tale tells how selfish

Rabbit, who is short on patience, simply cannot wait for natural snow, no matter that the other forest denizens are not yet ready for winter. Drum in hand, he sings as he dances in a circle: “I will make it snow, AZIKANAPO!” (It won’t take much coaching before listeners join in with this and other infectious refrains.) Like the Energizer Bunny, Rabbit just keeps going; by the time he ceases his drumming, only the top of the tallest tree is left sticking above the snow. Exhausted, Rabbit curls up on this branch and sleeps through the night and the hot sunshine of the next day, which melts all the snow. Stepping from his treetop, Rabbit gets a terrible surprise when he falls to the ground, his long bushy tail catching on each branch he passes and making the first pussy willows. And that is why rabbits now have short tails. Newman’s watercolor, gouache and ink illustrations are an interesting mix of styles. Some foregrounds appear to be painted in a pointillist manner, and some of the animals are almost manga-esque, lacking any shading in their sharp outlines and flat colors.

Kids who are looking forward to a snow day may give Rabbit’s chant a try, but hopefully, they will know when to stop. (Picture book. 3-7)

SNOWMEN AT WORK

Buehner, Caralyn Illus. by Buehner, Mark Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-8037-3579-8

The Buehners continue their snowmen-come-to-life shtick with this look at occupations.

A boy who made a snowman the night before awakens to find new snow on the ground but already-cleared walkways—by his snowman? “Was he the one who shoveled, with a snowman shoveling crew? / Could it be I just don’t see that snowmen have jobs too?” Caralyn Buehner’s rhyming verses then lead readers in an imaginative tour of other jobs snowmen might have: mechanic (for sleds), grocer, baker, magician, firefighter, “pizza man,” factory worker and truck driver. Each work scene is filled with familiar occupational details, like the clip that attaches the dentist’s cloth around patients’ necks and the decorations that adorn the classroom—it’s just the characters that seem out of place to 98.6-degree readers. Especially fun is the pet store, where all the animals are made of snow: a snow rabbit with carrot ears, a snow monkey swinging from the lights and “coldfish” in a tank. Hat, mitten and scarf styles add personality to the characters—don’t miss the librarian’s and teacher’s. A seek-andfind element adds to the fun of poring over the pages—a cat, rabbit, T-rex and mouse are hidden in each painting.

Fans and those looking for books about occupations may find themselves looking askance at every snowman they see. (Picture book. 3-7)

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A FLOWER IN THE SNOW

Corderoy, Tracey Illus. by Allsopp, Sophie Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (32 pp.) $16.99 | Dec. 1, 2012 978-1-4022-7740-5 This odd but sweet tale is flavored with a bit of O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi.”

Luna, in her igloo, and Bear, in a snow cave in Luna’s garden, are the best of friends in their snowy world (with not another soul, including a parent for Luna, in sight). They do everything together, and when Bear finds a wonderful yellow flower (a longstemmed crocus?) blooming in the snow, he knows just whom to give it to. Luna is thrilled with the sunshine flower, but when it dies, nothing can bring back her smile. Desperate to cheer up his friend, Bear sets off on a worldwide search for another sunshine flower, while back at home, Luna pines for her best friend.

A stray snowflake on Bear’s nose points him, empty-handed, toward home, where Luna has a surprise of her own—she planted a seed from the first flower and grew her own, saving the rest of the seeds to plant with her friend, who brought her smile back. Allsop’s friends are full of expression, the simply drawn cuddly polar bear managing to convey emotion, while her adorable, Inuit-looking girl displays great body language. Her watercolors beautifully juxtapose warm and cool colors, though the spare typeface doesn’t match the tone of the artwork.

This friendship tale definitely has a message, but readers may not be able to find it under the snow. (Picture book. 4-7)

SNOW DAY FOR MOUSE

Cox, Judy Illus. by Ebbeler, Jeffrey Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-0-8234-2408-5

In his fourth outing (Haunted House, Haunted Mouse, 2011, etc.), Mouse has a snowy adventure that could easily make the jump to being a wordless Pixar short.

Cox’s hapless Mouse doesn’t let anything get him down, making him a character sure to enjoy a wide fan base. Ebbeler’s comical acrylic illustrations are the stars here, depicting the undertakings of the accidentally swept-out Mouse as he explores and makes the most of the snowy landscape out of doors. Making the acquaintance of three southbound, camerawearing, suitcase-toting, sombrero-wearing birds who watch and influence his activities, Mouse ice skates in a puddle, toboggans on a leaf and makes some rad snow sculptures of his new friends. Throughout, the cat just misses pouncing on the Stuart Little–esque Mouse, but not for lack of (repeated) trying. And when Mouse makes it back to the warmth of the house, he remembers “the quivery, shivery, hungry birds,” ending the tale with a gentle, feel-good message perfectly delivered. Ebbeler brings readers into the setting with everyday details—the ugly, 2278 | 1 October 2012 | children ’s

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crisscrossing power lines, boot treads and wonderfully textured fur and feathers, but it’s the humorous details that will stand out to readers—don’t miss the rooftop snow sculpture.

Readers will look forward to taking this snow-day romp again and again. (Picture book. 4-8)

WHY IS THE SNOW WHITE?

Janisch, Heinz Translated by Morrison, Rebecca Illus. by Leffler, Silke NorthSouth (32 pp.) $17.95 | Nov. 1, 2012 978-0-7358-4092-8

A pourquoi tale about how Father Snow sought colors for the snow from the flowers is fodder for a father’s winter

bedtime tale.

Once, the snow was clear and colorless, but a meadow of brilliant flowers leads Father Snow to wonder what colored snow might be like. The violet is willing to lend him some of her color, but just as the snow starts to turn purple, she grabs her hue back: “But I…I need my color.” He gets the same reaction from the yellow sunflower, the red rose, the green blade of grass, the blue cornflower and many other brightly colored flowers.

Finally, he queries one last flower, white with tiny bells, and the snowdrop grants the snow her white color. Didacticism runs rampant through Janisch’s translated text, seen most clearly in the adverbs: The flowers all snatch their colors back hastily, impetuously, bitterly, carelessly. But what makes it so confusing is that Leffler’s illustrations never make it clear what the flowers are so afraid of—their unexpected and uncalled-for rudeness seems both out of place and over the top, since they are never portrayed as colorless, even while Father Snow tests out their colors. Her flowers have an old-fashioned color and style to them, and Father Snow is a transparent outline that takes on the color of the anthropomorphized bloom he is speaking to.

Humorless and illogical. (Picture book. 4-8)

SNOWZILLA

Lawler, Janet Illus. by Haley, Amanda Amazon Children’s Publishing (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 2, 2012 978-0-7614-6188-3 Community dissension and compromise are brought down to a kid’s level in this tale of a giant snowman.

With a little help from their family, some equipment and Mother Nature, Cami Lou and her little brother build a huge snowman sporting a hat, scarf and arms with five mittens/gloves each. “Then Cami Lou cheered / as she stood down below. / ‘We’ll call you Snowzilla! / Our giant of snow!’ ” People come from all around to see Snowzilla, but when the townspeople

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“The watercolors give a wonderful array of viewpoints, showing the path of the sled run as well as close-ups of the children: fresh-faced and having the time of their lives.” from the iciest, diciest, scariest sled ride ever

complain of blocked views, scared pets and the threat of flood, the judge rules that he must go. The modern-day girl turns to social media to save her snowman, and the next day, in an operation that could be likened to the moving of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, people turn out in droves to help hoist and move Snowzilla. But for all the hoopla, Cami Lou is not particularly sad when Snowzilla melts—she is busy planning something even bigger for next year, a disconnect that might catch readers’ attention. Haley’s brightly colored acrylic-and–colored-pencil artwork lends a festive feel to the text. Over-the-top patterns and styles of winter clothing, along with the hairstyles and grimaces of the sourpusses, give her characters personality. The power of a community to pull together and solve problems is definitely in evidence here, though the tale’s sheer implausibility and its sometimes-stumbling rhythms may turn readers off.

Ultimately like Snowzilla—fluff. (Picture book. 4-7)

TWELVE KINDS OF ICE

Obed, Ellen Bryan Illus. by McClintock, Barbara Houghton Mifflin (64 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 6, 2012 978-0-618-89129-0

Winter on a Maine farm offers the joys of ice in all its forms.

Icy childhood memories glisten in this magical series of nostalgic vignettes. From the first skim on a pail to the soft, splotchy rink surface at the end of the season, Obed recalls the delights of what others might have found a dreary season. The best thing about ice is skating: in fields, on a creek or frozen lake and, especially, on the garden rink. In a series of short scenes presented chronologically, the author describes each ice stage in vivid detail, adding suspense with a surprising midwinter thaw and peaking with an ice show. Her language shimmers and sparkles; it reads like poetry. Readers will have no trouble visualizing the mirror of black ice on a lake where their “blades spit out silver,” or the “long black snake” of a garden hose used to spray the water for their homemade rink.

McClintock’s numerous line drawings add to the delight. They show children testing the ice in a pail, a father waltzing with a broom, joyous children gliding down a hill in a neighbor’s frozen field. One double-page spread shows the narrator and her sister figure skating at night, imagining an admiring crowd. The perfect ice—and skating—of dreams concludes her catalog.

Irresistible. (Memoir. 6-9)

THE ICIEST, DICIEST, SCARIEST SLED RIDE EVER!

Rule, Rebecca Illus. by Thermes, Jennifer Islandport Press (36 pp.) $17.95 | Nov. 9, 2012 978-1-934031-88-9

A young girl’s first-person narration brings a New England sled ride to life.

But this isn’t just any sled ride. Inspired by ice-crusted snow, Grampa Bud’s yarns of his childhood and a giant homemade double-runner sled, seven friends set out to conquer the “highest, mightiest, iciest sledding hill.” Rule lengthens out one sled run into an entire book, but its pace is not slow and clunky, nor does it drag. Instead, she marvels in the details along the way, building up the suspense. Comically, the children attempt to get themselves and the sled to the top of the hill, taking each other out like dominoes as they relentlessly and repeatedly slide down to form a pig pile at the bottom. When they finally manage it, Thermes beautifully conveys the awesomeness of the hill they have chosen to tackle; none of the kids will speak their fears aloud, though their faces say volumes. The trip down is accomplished in just a few spreads, a ride so fast that tears, fears, screams and laughter all get whipped, “like a beautiful scarf trailing wildly behind.” The watercolors give a wonderful array of viewpoints, showing the path of the sled run as well as close-ups of the children: fresh-faced and having the time of their lives.

Parents beware: Children are likely to scout out the highest hill to try to replicate this amazing run. (Picture book. 4-8)

COLD SNAP

Spinelli, Eileen Illus. by Priceman, Marjorie Knopf (40 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 9, 2012 978-0-375-85700-3 A community caught under the pall of a weeklong cold snap comes together in this cozy, old-fashioned story that is high on both charm and appeal.

The Toby Mills cold snap begins innocently enough on a Friday, with snow angels, sledding and an icicle on the nose of the statue of the town founder. On Saturday, soup and stew are popular menu items at the diner, and the icicle is chin-length.

On Sunday, the heavily clothed townspeople shiver through church services. Wednesday is so cold that the mayor wears his robe and pink bunny slippers…at work. By Friday, the statue’s icicle reaches the ground, along with everyone’s patience. But the mayor’s wife has just the solution—a warm winter surprise that brings out the best in everyone and makes them forget the cold. The quaint details in Spinelli’s text that are brought to life in Priceman’s gouache illustrations make this book stand out,

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“This tale of a constructed friend charms with its magic and imagination.” from snowman magic

giving it the air of an old-fashioned seek-and-find. “Franky Tornetta stopped whining about his itchy woolen socks and put on three pairs,” and there he is in the picture, green socks layered over red and yellow. Boldly colored vignettes and spreads that depict the small-town setting and round-headed, pink-cheeked characters enhance the retro feel of the book.

This may not be the most exciting or enthralling winter tale, but it is perfect for sharing during readers’ own cold snaps—calming, reassuring, charming. (Picture book. 4-8)

SNOWMAN MAGIC

Tegen, Katherine Illus. by Dorman, Brandon Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-0-06-201445-0 This tale of a constructed friend charms with its magic and imagination.

A Friday snow day keeps George home from school, trapped inside and bored as the snow continues to fall. But Saturday is a great play-outside day, so George dons his warm winter clothes.

The next few pages are an expository-writing teacher’s dream, as the text and realistic-looking illustrations team up to create a guide to building a snowman. A few household items, some sticks and George’s hard work, and the snowman is complete.

Through some unknown magic, George’s snowman comes to life and responds when George offers him a snack. The two spend the day chasing each other and flinging snowballs. On Sunday, a warmer day, George’s snowman doesn’t have as much energy. Monday, a school day, is even hotter. When George gets off the school bus, he finds a small heap of snow decorated with some buttons, a scarf and a carrot (in the illustration, it looks like a jumbled pile of white fleece fabric). But Tuesday brings more snow, and George cannot wait…“to build his snowman again.” Readers will have no doubt that George’s lively snowman will return.

Though this doesn’t quite match the allure of Michael Garland’s Christmas Magic (2001) or the pure fun of Caralyn and Mark Buehner’s Snowmen at Night (2002), it is a nice cross between the two that will have kids rolling snowman pieces with dedicated purpose. (Picture book. 4-8)

CAN’T WE SHARE?

van Genechten, Guido Illus. by van Genechten, Guido Clavis (30 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-1-60537-121-4 Series: Little Snowman Stan This sharing lesson is about as didactic as they come.

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and snowy. While the snowmen all look a little different, each wears a hat of some sort. That is, until Dmitri arrives without one—a blizzard blew his hat away: “Sad and without my hat, I kept going. Until I arrived here.” Impetuously, the generous and bighearted Stan hands over his own blue plaid hat so Dmitri can wear it for a few days. But Dmitri has no intention of giving it back. The snowmen meet and discuss solutions to the problem, but all focus on either punishing Dmitri or forcing either Dmitri or Stan to live hatless. But Stan comes up with a sharing solution acceptable to all: They will rotate the hats so that no one goes more than one day bareheaded. The watercolor snowmen convey emotion through the curve of their mouths and the roundness of their eyes. It’s a cute-enough, though plodding, story with sweet illustrations, but readers are practically hit over the head with the sharing message. Who knows, though—didactic sometimes proves to be pretty popular; look at Rainbow Fish.

Still, in this day and age of lice, parents may wish the snowmen shared something other than hats. (Picture book. 3-6)

SNOWBOY 1, 2, 3

Wahman, Joe Illus. by Wahman, Wendy Henry Holt (32 pp.) $14.99 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-8050-8732-1 Even the sparkles on the cover may not be enough to redeem this wintry counting book, the author’s debut.

The almost nonexistent story loosely follows a snowboy as he adventures across the snowy landscape, meeting and playing with friends along the way and escaping from a fox who wants to eat his new rabbit pals. Numbers connect everything as the text counts from one to 10 and back down again in both numbers and numerals. This is a rhyming book, though the rhymes cross page turns: “One snowboy all alone. // Two children unaware. // Three ancient apple trees. // Four apples in the air.” This interrupts the rhythm, particularly for children who wish to linger over Wendy Wahman’s digital illustrations. Sharply defined, stylized shapes and flat, though vibrant, colors mark her distinctive illustrative style, but it may not be to everyone’s taste, with its flower-patterned fish, fixedly-smiling snow people and unkindness of unfriendly-looking ravens. The details that readers are likely to enjoy are often too small to see—the knitting spiders, for instance. Indeed, the tiny Photoshop illustrations will make this difficult to share with even small groups. Also, even the youngest of children may spot the gloves amid what should be the “Eight mittens in a row.”

Count on skipping this one in favor of a celebration of winter that has a more obvious storyline. (Picture book. 3-5)

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interactive e-books THE STOLEN STARS

Farias, Juan Illus. by Mejías Encinas, Javier; González Giménez, David ALPIXEL $2.99 | Aug. 2, 2012 1.0.2; Aug. 17, 2012 A “choose your own”–style quest tale, with selectable options aplenty for protagonist and magical gear as well as plot.

The sudden disappearance of the green stars that bring happy dreams to the people of Leuman prompts the dispatch of a young hero—a boy named Yalot, a girl named Nidia or (with the audio switched off) a child with any reader-entered name—to, ultimately, a creepy castle basement. Along the way, questers are prompted to select several potions or other helpful items (which are smoothly integrated into later incidents), to choose directions at a fork in the road and to perform various other actions before being allowed to go on.

The loudly colored cartoon pictures feature an unusually diverse array of touch-activated features, from falling stars, light bulbs and boulders that all become poppable bubbles to Leuman’s hilariously flatulent king and a spectacular cascade of bones rattling down a flight of stairs. The text and narration are available in English (with a British accent) or Spanish, and a thumbnail index allows readers to change options in midcourse if so moved.

A little sketchy of storyline, but well-endowed with digital widgetry and bursts (as it were) of alimentary humor. (iPad storybook app. 6-8)

GOOD NIGHT, OWL

Lemniscates Illus. by Lemniscates iLUBUC $2.99 | Feb. 18, 2012 1.1; Jul. 9, 2012

A quick and direct introduction to the idea of sharing has quirks aplenty in its translated text.

Moonlit woodland scenes are constructed paper-collage– style of disparate pieces in contrasting textures and atmospherically tinted with muted greens and grays. Within them, a small owl observes several animals wakeful or sleeping.

Then he spots another owl. They give the matter due consideration: “On each branch an owl ashelf, / And both begin to think: Is it good / To hunt each by himself?... / Or is it best to work in synch?” After concluding the latter, the two share a “worm” (apparently a very long caterpillar, as it has teeny-tiny

legs) and, with a tap on the final picture, lean together companionably. Along with frequent odd locutions (“He sees the cat surround the rat / And toad come out of his hide”), the all-caps text falls into and out of rhyme, at least in its English version, and doesn’t always accurately reflect details in the accompanying illustration. (It’s also available in German and several Romance languages, with optional audio.) The pages are slow to load, there is no musical track, and interactive elements are largely limited to touch-activated hoots or small shifts of position.

A worthy message is marred by a presentation that is, to say the least, unvarnished. (iPad storybook app. 3-5)

THE ANIMATED TALE OF BENJAMIN BUNNY

Potter, Beatrix The Wundershop $4.99 | Aug. 11, 2012 1.0; Aug. 11, 2012

Benjamin leads his sick cousin Peter into another traumatic outing to Mr. McGregor’s garden in this cozy if not quite streamlined digital rendition of the 1904 classic.

Designed to look like an early print edition, in landscape orientation, each screen shows two antiqued “pages,” with text placed on the left and on the right an elaborately animated version of the original illustration. In portrait mode, only the enlarged illustrations are visible, and the effect is even more movielike; the figures have even been lip-synced with the narration. Within layered settings that move independently to create a 3-D impression, Benjamin, a wilted-looking Peter, the cat that traps the two interlopers under a basket for five hours and Benjamin’s pipe-smoking, switch-wielding father move from multiple joints like expertly manipulated marionettes. There are no sound effects, but a piano chimes in the background as an expressive narrator (optionally) reads, and there is a self-record option too. At four points the story pauses distractingly to offer readers a jigsaw puzzle, and for all the sophisticated design within the art the page turns are stiff and jerky.

Though not quite the equal of Loud Crow’s spectacular Beatrix Potter adaptations, this does give the tale a fresh reboot—respectful enough to retain the full text with its corporal punishment and smoking references. (iPad storybook app. 5-8)

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MARVIN AND MOLLY

Theobald, Joseph Illus. by Theobald, Joseph Pekingese Puppy $5.99 | Jul. 30, 2012 1.0.1; Jul. 30, 2012

Sheep play sexual politics on the lea in this deceptively bucolic outing.

Suddenly seeing her longtime best friend Marvin “in a different way,” Molly makes courtship overtures to which Marvin is oblivious. She then plays the jealousy card by going off with another sheep who has a feather and other “special things.” Wandering off sadly, Marvin comes upon an outdoor music festival where he’s primped, pampered and given such special things of his own as star-shaped shades and polka-dot shorts. Back in the field, he sings a wild song about how special he is and proposes to Molly—who accepts “[when] we are grown up. But first let’s play lots of silly games together!” In the painted illustrations, flowers nod over clipped greenswards as fleecy sheep drift by and baa or change expression when poked. Along with audio and autoplay options for the story, the app includes painting and dress-up features, plus a link to an unstable but free satellite app in which Marvin can entertainingly be made to blush, fart and belch.

At first glance, just a mildly comical set of ovine antics— but with (speaking of “silly games”) a not-so-amusing subtext. (iPad storybook app. 5-7)

This Issue’s Contributors # Kim Becnel • Sophie Brookover • Louise Brueggemann • Timothy Capehart • GraceAnne A. DeCandido • Dave DeChristopher • Elise DeGuiseppi • Carol Edwards • Barbara A. Genco • Judith Gire • Melinda Greenblatt • Megan Honig • Jennifer Hubert • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Betsy Judkins •Deborah Kaplan • K. Lesley Knieriem • Robin Fogle Kurz • Angela Leeper • Peter Lewis • Jeanne McDermott • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine • Rebecca Rabinowitz • Kristy Raffensberger • Shana Raphaeli • Nancy Thalia Reynolds • Erika Rohrbach • Leslie L. Rounds • Chris Shoemaker • Jennifer Sweeney • Monica Wyatt

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indie These titles earned the Kirkus Star: YOUNG PRB by Elisabeth M. Lee.............................................. p. 2287 MATERIAL WITNESS by L.A. Mondello................................... p. 2288 THE IGUANA SPEAKS MY NAME by Roberto Moulun............ p. 2288

THE IGUANA SPEAKS MY NAME

Moulun, Roberto EgretBooks.com (238 pp.) $14.95 paperback Sep. 1, 2012 9780985774400

LU LU, THE BLUE FLAMINGO Barber, Robert Lon Illus. by Barber, Robert Lon CreateSpace (42 pp.) $12.95 paperback | Jun. 3, 2012 978-1477595084

A flamingo who doesn’t look anything like the rest of her flock is tired of always standing out.

Barber’s picture book emphasizes the positive message that it’s okay to be different. Lu Lu’s blue feathers make her a star attraction at the zoo where she lives, but after a frightening encounter with one young zoo visitor, Lu Lu decides that she’s tired of being a celebrity. The bird visits Dr. Havalook who mixes up a special batch of pink paint to coat her from head to toe. She’s excited that she finally looks like the rest of the flamingos. But the reaction of her fellow zoo animals makes her regret her decision. Scared that she might have to be pink forever, she hurries back to Dr. Havalook who gives her the good news that she can go back to her old blue self at any time. Her friends help wash off all the pink paint, and Lu Lu goes back to being the blue flamingo. She’s delighted to be a zoo superstar once again. Colorful, realistic illustrations will appeal to kids.

Some wordy passages and some longer words—“When the zoo keeper searched for his prized bird, he was horrified that Lu Lu refused to come out for anyone!”—mean this book isn’t suited to beginning readers, but it will certainly work as a read-aloud.

The tale concludes with a fill-in page and two coloring pages, which make for useful extension activities but could prove problematic for library and classroom use. The message is a simple but timeless one: celebrate what makes one unique rather than trying to hide those differences. Young listeners should have no problem identifying the message with a few helpful prompts.

The book will also provide a useful springboard for discussions about identity and personal traits.

Uniqueness triumphs in this colorful, fun tale of an unusual flamingo.

| kirkus.com | indie | 1 October 2012 | 2283

HIS GOOD FRIENDS

Buck, Paul Michael Wild Child Publishing (174 pp.) $4.99 e-book | May 20, 2012 A struggling writer gets caught up in crime in this New York City–based thriller from debut author Buck.

Esteemed, aging novelist Norman Pope suffers from the emotional weight of two past marriages, nagging prostate problems, persistent bunions and, perhaps most devastatingly of all, writer’s block. Unable to get any of his old writing juices flowing, Pope counsels a group of would-be writers in what is collectively called the Novel Club.

When a well-liked member of the group goes missing, a search begins that ultimately entails murder, corporate crime and Pope becoming a wanted man. With no one but his club members and an old poet friend available to help him, he winds his way through the city as he’s simultaneously pursued by powerful bad guys and the NYPD. Pope is no seasoned Cold War agent or hard-boiled detective; he’s a curmudgeon who frequently needs to go to the bathroom. Anything having to do with a computer needs to be explained to him. The novelty of seeing him interact with the modern world lends him an amiable air, even if his story needs a solid edit. The book suffers from a peppering of typos that can halt otherwise tense moments. When one character remarks about the importance of a key being where he needs it to be, he says: “That key had better there.” Frequent scenes involving food and coffee-drinking don’t add much to the storyline, although the swift plotting is enjoyably paced.

The last chapter ties everything together perhaps a little bit too tightly, but watching Pope adapt to the world around him holds its own reward.

A breezy, unpolished thriller with a digestible plot and a likable protagonist.

RESTRICTED WATERS Conyer, Kara Lynn Waterhouse Books (160 pp.) $2.99 e-book | Jul. 11, 2012

Government conspiracy drives the danger in this absorbing near-future apocalyptic tale of underwater intrigue.

When 16-year-old Alannis Summers volunteers to intern on a research expedition to find the cause behind a fastspreading, oceanic plague, her desire is to prove herself as both a diver and a scientist. The Fouling— a hard, black crust that has been sinking ships from the Gulf of Mexico all along the Atlantic seaboard, making a complete wreck of the global economy—may have started in the mysterious islands of the Cubbarros, so world-renowned marine biologist Dr. Candace Warren has organized a research trip to find the cure. Initially concerned only with making herself useful while 2284 | 1 October 2012 | indie | kirkus.com |

fitting in with the scientists and crew, Alannis realizes that the superstitions of the Cubbarros may be true. She begins to suspect that the secrets behind those superstitions are being kept by a large, military force known as the Commission, which years before ousted the government of the Cubbarros and formed an organization controlling trade in the Atlantic. The more Alannis discovers—a wreck she spots on an early morning swim, bioluminescent squid that swim beside the research vessel and something watching the divers in the water—the more trouble she may be in. Conyer’s descriptions of Alannis’ dives are full of sensory details that will bring readers closer to Alannis’ adventures: “The familiar feel of breathing underwater and the light mechanical sound of the regulator are like instant meditation.

A soft shhhhh in followed by the deep whooshhhh and the gurgle of bubbles out.” As danger develops, Alannis’ suspicion about her teammates grows, as do her doubts about her own sanity when she begins to believe the superstitions. Though the government conspiracies aren’t especially sophisticated, the pressurized feeling of danger convincingly presses in on Alannis and the research crew. Despite her protestations, there’s plenty of chemistry in her relationship with Jake, the slightly older first mate. Conyer leaves enough loose ends that readers will eagerly await a second installment in Alannis’ seafaring adventure.

A seaworthy supernatural voyage.

NIGHT OF THE PURPLE MOON Cramer, Scott Train Renoir Publishing (185 pp.) $9.95 paperback | $2.99 e-book May 28, 2012 978-0615637082

This modern, dystopian YA novel takes on a classic scenario: children left to fend for themselves in the wake of disaster.

When a comet passes through Earth’s atmosphere, prepubescent children everywhere awake to find that all the adults have been killed by space dust from the comet. Thirteen-year-old Abby, 12-year-old Jordan and 2-year-old Toucan find themselves alone in their home on Castine Island, off the coast of Portland, Maine. Their father, the island librarian, had moved them from Cambridge, Mass., back to his childhood home, and their mother would eventually follow when she could find a new job. Now, Abby must take care of Jordan and Toucan. They share resources and consolation with neighbors Kevin and Emily Patel, also outsiders by island standards. Extremely smart Kevin figures out how to repair their Internet connection and helps decipher the CDC’s radio announcements. Eventually, 28 other survivors on the island move into a mansion with the Patels, Abby, Jordan and Toucan, where they begin to farm, perform chores and dispose of bodies.

The older children face even more dire circumstances: Nearing puberty, they run the risk of becoming infected by the space dust. When the CDC announces the release of antibiotics in Boston, Jordan and Abby—who, having now reached puberty,

“DeNucci offers authoritative guidance on how to distill the top 20 percent of connections who can bring the most results and value and how a business networker can protect his or her time by saying no ‘with grace.’ ” from the intentional networker

are deathly ill—volunteer to go to the mainland and return with enough pills for the whole island. This well-thought-out novel plots the days and months following the deadly comet’s aftermath, including the fortitude of adolescents as they deal with the deaths of their parents and figure out how to survive.

Although the children on the island mostly work together, Cramer also gives glimpses of all that could go wrong with a society led by children. With cruelty and bullying inexorably linked to the children’s survival, Cramer’s novel is reminiscent of other dystopian YA novels, although its modern take is decidedly unique. The faceless adults of the CDC create the antibiotics to provide the cure, but the real heroes are the children—Abby and Jordan especially—who look to pass on kindness and camaraderie despite the intensely competitive, grim circumstances.

Cramer creates a picture of our world that’s both frightening and inspiring in this heartfelt story that both young adults and adults can enjoy.

A heartwarming but not overly sentimental story of survival.

ARTIFACTS OF DEATH A Murder Mystery in Utah’s Canyon Country Curtin, Rich CreateSpace (302 pp.) $12.95 paperback | $6.99 e-book Feb. 8, 2011 978-1453890851

In the first of the Manny Rivera Mystery series, a collection of rare, valuable Native American pottery leads to deceit

and murder.

Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera is assigned to the case of a ranch hand found with a bullet hole in his head. The deputy, desperate to make up for a previously botched stakeout gig, tracks clues and hopes to solve the murder before the profitable tourist season in Moab, Utah, takes a hit. The killer, meanwhile, is trying to sell Native American artifacts that are apparently worth shooting someone for. He obtained the pottery illegally, on a ranch run by a man who, unbeknownst to Manny, found the body first and moved it to protect a secret. Curtin’s debut novel is easily labeled a murder mystery, but it’s more about the investigation than the whodunit, especially since the killer’s identity and motive are never a mystery. The real question is why Paul, the ranch foreman, drove the body far away from the ranch, a mystery that the author smartly keeps concealed until the end.

Manny’s investigation consists mostly of interviews, but following along with the deputy is utterly absorbing and gratifying since he’s essentially the underdog; his intentions are to make amends for his last case and make an impression on the sheriff.

Such drive makes Manny refreshingly modest; he’s more critical of his mistakes than anyone else. The same likable qualities are, surprisingly, also shown in Frank, the man who kills the ranch hand. His discharge from the Army is followed by a succession of tedious jobs, and he’s treated poorly by his current employer.

A sympathetic person, he’s a man whose greed is a character flaw, not a defining trait, and he clearly feels regret over the murder. Curtin’s descriptions of arid Moab are poetic: a mesa “sliced by a labyrinth of rugged canyons,” the “exquisite silence” of the high desert country and the “plumes of dust” Frank sees as he spots his buyer from afar. Unfortunately, one mystery—the genuine identity of the murdered man—isn’t answered, although perhaps that’s for another Manny Rivera tale.

Perceptive storytelling energized by an admirable protagonist and refined prose.

THE INTENTIONAL NETWORKER Attracting Powerful Relationships, Referrals & Results In Business DeNucci, Patti Rosewall Press (274 pp.) $19.95 paperback | Oct. 3, 2011 978-0983546108

A professional networking expert shares tips and techniques for making the most out of business connections.

Nowadays, with all the emphasis on connecting via social media, it’s easy for a businessperson to overlook the importance of the original social interaction: connecting face-toface. That oversight would be a costly mistake, as is evidenced in DeNucci’s highly readable book. Keys to the networking process include identifying your strengths and weaknesses, polishing your image and personal brand, and setting goals and intentions for networking. Along with advice on how to stand out in a crowd and avoid referral blunders, the author shares sage counsel on the many vexing aspects of networking. For example, she wisely addresses the issue of quantity vs. quality in social connections, citing the example of Ethan, who reached his “Connections Critical Mass”: “Ethan had believed everyone he met and every business function he attended had something to offer him and his business.…As his business matured and his database and networking calendar grew, they were on the verge of robbing him and his business of valuable time, resources, and energy.” DeNucci offers authoritative guidance on how to distill the top 20 percent of connections who can bring the most results and value and how a business networker can protect his or her time by saying no “with grace.” She uses real-life scenarios and includes numerous helpful suggestions to motivate the reader to experiment with tactics that could result in a better networking experience. Along the way, DeNucci encourages and promotes selfconfidence: “Delete the words ‘should’ and ‘have to’ from your vocabulary. Those are word choices that we often put upon ourselves when really we do have choices and options.”

Novice and experienced networkers will appreciate this winning combination of networking philosophy and techniques.

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“A witty and wise read, especially for fans of tough-minded heroines.” from stainless mary

THE GUGGENHEIM FILE Die Akte Guggenheim Griffiths, Sylvia Manuscript (219 pp.)

The Guggenheim’s family story as a lesson in world history.

What once took considerable time and toil—finding out from whence you came—is now but a quick click away. The Internet has made amateur genealogists of us all. Meanwhile, unearthing the stories behind the branches in the family tree, well, that still requires an awful lot of heavy digging. Consider Griffiths’ (a Guggenheim descendent) work a testament, then, to her work ethic. To be fair, a lot of the heavy lifting had already been done. Margot Löhr’s discovery of the Guggenheim File itself and Jens Huckeriede’s documentary about what the Nazis did to the Guggenheim family were already known to the author. In fact, as Griffiths says, both parties had approached her about participating in their respective projects.

Not wanting to dredge up the horrors of the Shoah, Griffiths (whose father had even anglicized their last name) declined the offers. Lucky for us, she’s since had a change of heart. The author’s meticulously researched, lovingly written account has deeply personalized all prior documents that bear her surname.

Along with the Rothschilds, the Guggenheims were one of the most prominent Jewish families hit by Hitler. The original Die Akte Guggenheim goes into great detail about how the Nazis, in Griffiths’ translation, “confiscated my grandparents’ business, property, land, and how they tried to subjugate their lives.” And yet, as she points out in “An Abbreviated List of Eleven Generations of The Guggenheim Family,” the existence of Felix Mendelssohn, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and of course Solomon R. Guggenheim proves that fascism never could accomplish that final goal. Many books have been written on the post-World War II Jewish diaspora; here, Griffiths’ record reveals an audit of the atrocities within a greater narrative of triumph—and it is both uniquely intimate and overwhelmingly universal.

An inspirational, fascinating chronicle of a family’s will to survive.

DUNCAN, SON OF SAGIRA Holley, E.C. CreateSpace (280 pp.) $10.99 paperback | $0.99 e-book May 28, 2012 978-1477475232

The cats are not what they seem.

Duncan’s feline mother always knew he was different. She had seen his newborn kitten eyes flash gold, just as hers did when she had visions of the future.

He seems to have inherited the ancient magic of Sagira, a cat that possessed powers feared by both cats and humans. Now, 2286 | 1 October 2012 | indie | kirkus.com |

cats conceal their intelligence and ability to talk from humans, although it was not always this way. In Sagira’s time and place, 900 B.C. in Egypt, cats and humans had respected one another and communicated openly. The mutual respect lasted only so long after humans discovered Sagira and her abilities to burst into flames, bend minds, see the future, become invisible and move at incredible speed. Obsessed with Sagira, the Egyptians began to worship her and all cats; but she denied their affections and kept to herself. The worship of cats soon turned to hate and fear, which led to massive feline slaughter by humans.

Cats slowly learned to live peacefully with humans by pretending to act as house pets. Before Sagira died, she left behind a book of prophecies as well as five kittens, each possessing one of Sagira’s powers—that is, until Duncan. After being adopted by a young human couple and forced to live with a hostile, older cat named Whiski, Duncan discovers that he has inherited all five of Sagira’s powers. In an effort to learn how to control his powers and keep his new family safe, Duncan and Whiski set out to find help. But will the mysterious feral cats that protect Sagira’s book help Duncan find the answers before the hateful purebreds kill him? The story is incredibly imaginative and quirky. Employing real-life references, Holley gives the illusion that this story isn’t as outlandish as it seems. She has inspired explanations for why black cats are known as bad luck, and she playfully hints at the hidden intelligence of house cats. The popculture references—kittens watch Star Trek—are both comical and bizarre. She even manages to include a cult of nasty purebred cats that act as a hate group. Unabashedly goofy, the wellwritten, action-packed story doesn’t end here; it’s only the first of a three-part series.

Cat and magic fans, unite!

STAINLESS MARY O Come, All Ye Faithful

K., Kathleen CreateSpace (122 pp.) $6.66 paperback | $4.99 e-book Jun. 27, 2012 978-1475028850 A fictional account of one woman’s struggle with marriage and faith.

K. (The Lent Hand, 2011, etc.) introduces us to Mary Stanley, a proper Catholic girl of the 1970s whose life plan could be plotted by a GPS: “It was all crystal clear. Marry. Mother. Endure. Ascend. Bingo.”

And of course, remain a virgin until marriage and honor the other precepts of Holy Mother Church. Mary marries a good Catholic boy from the neighborhood, Bruce O’Kenna, and slow disaster follows. Bruce has an undersized penis (not a spoiler: we learn this on the very first page). Bruce lets his penis define his life and excuse him from finding real happiness. He is a passive aggressive, insufferable, controlling whiner. K. paints a wonderfully grim picture of this husband that faithful Mary endures— which would seem to have become the key word in her life agenda. Bruce does give her three children, however, and when

the book opens, Mary is a middle-aged, divorced (in the eyes of the state, if not the church), empty-nester unjustly fired from her job as a bookkeeper for the diocese; she discovered a lot of fiscal hanky-panky—and mishandling of rogue priests—and could keep quiet no longer. Mary then volunteers at a women’s shelter. This section reads almost like nonfiction and includes anecdotes about women who keep screwing up—neither gender is spared in this book—and those who finally manage to take control of their lives. Mary, aided by her friend Sister Agatha, another fighter and realist, begins to come into her own spiritually. Eventually, Bruce dies, freeing Mary to remarry. This is a story of bad breaks and redemption, a story of choices. Bruce always sees the glass as half empty, and it impoverishes his life.

Mary is no Pollyanna, but neither is she a quitter. At the end of the book, she’s a mature woman who has seen what life can throw at a person and has learned to deal with it. There are old truths here known to any true grown-up, but it is good to be reminded of them again.

A witty and wise read, especially for fans of toughminded heroines.

STREET SMART DISCIPLINES OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE Kuhn, John A.; Mullins, Mark K. CreateSpace (300 pp.) $16.95 paperback | Jun. 16, 2012 978-1466335691

Two entrepreneurs impart no-nonsense advice in a blunt business book that hits the mark.

You’ve got to hand it to Kuhn and Mullins. The pair started a company with $1,000, built it into a multimillion-dollar business and then sold it to a large corporation. They say their success was based on “the flawless execution” of seven disciplines they identified and followed. In some ways, their business guide is typical for the genre: Each chapter includes real-life examples, quotes from famous people, sidebars to break up the text and plenty of bullets for easy skimming. Nothing new there. But what distinguishes it is its tone of blunt honesty.

They tell it like it is. The result is refreshingly different business writing. For example, in Discipline Three, “Deal with People,” the authors write, “The secret is to downsize your expectations of people. They are the way they are, whether we like it or not, and we must accept that. The wise person fights nothing. Acceptance frees us from having to confront feelings of frustration and disappointment when dealing with others.” In a chapter devoted to getting more business, they discuss the use of social media marketing, urging the reader: “Be honest with yourself. Don’t let the excitement of new technologies get in the way of current business goals.”

Whether it’s “street smart” or tough love, the authors’ style commands attention. There may not be anything earth shattering about their advice, but it’s packaged in easily digestible chunks. A nice extra is the “Street Smart Workshop”

included at the end of the book—a self-paced walk-through of exercises designed to help accomplish “breakout success.”

Wise business counsel from guys who got there the hard way—and who want to help the reader forge an easier path.

YOUNG PRB A Novel of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Lee, Elisabeth M. April Books (520 pp.) $14.95 paperback | $4.99 e-book Jun. 27, 2012 978-0985027001 In Lee’s novel, set in Victorian London and based on real events, a group of rebellious young artists battles the repercussions of their refusal to conform.

It’s 1848, and William Holman Hunt has just been accepted to study at the prestigious London Academy of Art. However, he resents the overly prettified, sentimental landscapes that litter the annual Academy Exhibition. He wants to create art that imitates life—all the color, confusion and even ugliness.

A few like-minded young men, most notably John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, share Hunt’s views, and together they form a group called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Like any revolutionary group, the PRB has plenty of naysayers, including the vehemently jealous traditionalist Frank Stone and his more famous compatriot Charles Dickens; Lee litters her novel with mentions of these and other notable artistic celebrities of the period, such as Keats, Tennyson and Wilkie Collins. Her novel—a quick read despite the hefty page count—features many detailed descriptions of the Brotherhood’s artwork, and it could have benefited from an illustrated appendix with paintings shown rather than merely described. Nonetheless, Lee has a talent for making the minutest artistic details sound interesting. She also has a historian’s accurate eye for the period, but she doesn’t allow those details to bog down the story and turn it into a dry, purely factual text.

The artists of the Brotherhood are portrayed with distinct personalities, styles and beliefs, which, in the novel’s central dramatic vein, affect their struggle to remain united in the face of adversity. Anyone interested in the culture of Victorian London will find plenty to celebrate.

An illuminating look at an influential artistic period, which may well inspire readers to pick up their own pen or paintbrush.

| kirkus.com | indie | 1 October 2012 | 2287

“Moulun transforms Guatemala’s troubled, complex reality into a rich, compelling aesthetic vision.” from the iguana speaks my name

MATERIAL WITNESS Mondello, L.A. Amazon Digital Services (194 pp.) $3.99 e-book | Jun. 6, 2012

Mondello’s latest, a pulse-pounding, pitch-perfect addition to the romanticsuspense genre.

Cassie Alvaraz, a mystery writer in Providence, R.I., is smart, funny and attractively down to earth. She’s also on deadline and in need of inspiration. In search of fresh material, Maureen, her editor, suggests that Cassie dress alluringly and hang out in an infamous underworld bar. Cassie realizes the absurdity of Maureen’s idea too late, but she still feels game after spotting hunky undercover cop Jake Santos. Jake can tell right away that Cassie is no prostitute, and if she doesn’t get herself out of the seedy dive where he’s waiting to meet an informant, she might get hurt. Just as their flirtation threatens to get heavy, gunfire rips apart the bar. When the smoke clears, a local mobster lies in a pool of blood, and Jake realizes that Cassie is the only one who got a good look at the killer. Soon the duo is on the run with, and later without, FBI protection, and the spark they first felt at the bar slowly kindles a roaring passion.

Mondello brings terrific enthusiasm to this material; Cassie, the sassy heroine, is immensely likable, Jake, the dreamboat, is also a thoughtful cop, and their passion feels genuine. Action scenes are taut, while snappy dialogue manages to be by turns tough and cute. The supporting cast provides the right number of red herrings, but the plot breaks no new ground, with the heroes racing through a series of classic witness-in-peril clichés, such as a safe house that isn’t so safe after all. In the end, the real hook is the nimble tone that shifts from breezy to thrilling and back again with masterful precision.

Terrific escapist entertainment, as good as anything in Janet Evanovich’s oeuvre.

THE IGUANA SPEAKS MY NAME

Moulun, Roberto EgretBooks.com (238 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Sep. 1, 2012 9780985774400 Lush landscapes, enchanted happenings, tangled roots and violence suffuse this beguiling collection of stories set in the highlands of Guatemala.

Quince, the narrator of these interlocking stories, is a writer living in the village of Panimache, near three volcanoes and a deep blue lake. He serves as a keen observer of the vibrant, tense surroundings in a land that “bled from a war no one wanted to notice.” Panimache is a town divided by conflict, caste and consciousness. It’s teetering between bourgeois aspirations and Mayan peasant culture, 2288 | 1 October 2012 | indie | kirkus.com |

seemingly placid but on edge from the fighting between government soldiers and guerillas, and simmering with repressed bad memories. The title novella introduces a diverse, intriguing set of characters—shopkeepers and restaurateurs; Quince’s friend Uno, a nature photographer and reputed shaman; El Capitan Lobo, the urbane army commander who feels apologetic about the brutal counterinsurgency he’s waging (“[s]ometimes we massacre the Indians, other times it’s the guerillas”); and La China, a whore longing to be a muse. These and other figures recur in 10 more yarns that are often shot through with exquisite threads of magical realism: A youth is beguiled to his doom by a gorgeous vampire; a con man makes his living with a fortunetelling sparrow; a man’s frantic search for buried treasure yields an astounding payoff; an orphaned, ostracized Mayan girl hides herself in the shapes of birds and animals. Moulun’s clear prose balances sensual sounds, colors and foods against a deadpan humor and a detached, meditative mood. His writing has a fablelike quality, featuring strong narratives linked to mythic themes, but it’s also full of social nuance and subtle psychological shadings. Moulun transforms Guatemala’s troubled, complex reality into a rich, compelling aesthetic vision.

Imaginative storytelling with real literary depth.

PIPPER’S SECRET INGREDIENT Murphy, Jane; Fingerhuth, Allison Illus. by Sharp, Neal Mutt Media (145 pp.) $16.95 | Mar. 30, 2012 978-0615388083

In this fast-paced, engaging kids’ book, a dog scours the world for the ingredients to the perfect biscuit, while an evil biscuit company is hot on her heels.

The first book of the Snoutz Adventure series tells the story of Pipper, a puppy and food blogger seeking her next great adventure and scoop. While hanging out with her pals—Sophie, a librarian; Sidney, a mail carrier and aspiring rock star; firefighter Hilda; designer–inventor Archibald and personal trainer Chance—the dogs help her realize that she should track down the secret ingredient for a perfect dog biscuit. Meanwhile, the leading dog biscuit manufacturer, Bogus Biscuits, has been cutting costs and producing biscuits that are making everyone sick. When Bull Bogus catches wind of Pipper’s quest, he sends Bumbles Brug to tail her and determine the secret to the perfect biscuit so he can steal it and use the recipe to save his failing company. Pipper travels around the world, visiting the pyramids in Egypt for inspiration on the perfect design, trailing a vivacious dog in France who teaches her about the beauty of ginger and other ingredients, and venturing into other countries where she picks up tips from locals. Pipper’s friends at home discover that she’s being tailed, so they alert her and then infiltrate Bogus Biscuits in a plan to get their products off the market.

Murphy and Fingerhuth do an excellent job creating tension, which keeps the reader wondering whether Bumbles will derail the investigation. The book effectively presents the world of

“The animal motif all but fills the book’s last third with the often-anthropomorphized hosts: owls, raccoons, porcupines, llamas and bees.” from the right taxi

contemporary technology: Each chapter includes a blog posting

by Pipper, including comments that readers have left, and the characters use cellphones to message each other. In addition to Sharp’s rich, colorful illustrations, the authors offer a glimpse of foreign cultures—Pipper learns phrases from each country, she eats local dishes, sees iconic buildings and mentions major cultural attractions—which amount to a great overview of countries most kids have never visited. There’s also a crash course in healthy nutrition, featuring recipes for salads and other foods (including dog treats).

An educational tool that’s well-disguised as a compelling, fun read, excellent for kids interested in dogs, food and travel.

THE RIGHT TAXI

Rewak, William J. CreateSpace (116 pp.) $11.00 paperback | $10.00 e-book Jun. 21, 2012 978-1475187489 A Jesuit priest and educator offers observations on the large and small, the divine and human, in this series of brief free verse poems.

As a Jesuit priest with a Ph.D. in literature, Rewak has all the qualifications to deliver a bookish, esoteric and sanctimonious debut. He could wax on about Milton or drop in an obscure metrical line about the glory and vengeance of God. Thank God he doesn’t. Instead, he delivers what one might imagine as a departure from his day job. His succinct poems (few surpass 200 words) are understated and sometimes even playful as they bound between observations on memory, fantasy and ultimate delivery. The author pays tribute to family members, friends and, repeatedly, the nebulous origins of inspiration and, in its absence, wordless boredom. His tips of the cap, however, are subtle: a math equation, cornfield or ticket stub. As he weaves farther in and out of projections and microcosms, the references tiptoe into weirder waters. Sir Gawain and a rhino drink martinis in separate poems. In another, an egret orders pasta. The animal motif all but fills the book’s last third with the often-anthropomorphized hosts: owls, raccoons, porcupines, llamas and bees. Whether man, beast or spirit, the center of Rewak’s poems carry gentle points on life, death and spirituality that ease their way into print. He has a charming tendency to take long pulls on ideas before punctuating them with terse and tasteful endpoints. It builds a reassuring rhythm rarely broken, though it can occasionally make the trip’s destination seem imprecise. Nevertheless, the collection’s meanderings rarely stall. The magical realism of Rewak’s voice helps to set his poems in the footholds of his disciplines: between the magic of spiritualism and the mirror that literature holds to odd, old reality.

Warm, wistful and occasionally weird; a subtle, carefully crafted book of poems.

LUMBERVILLE SEVEN

Rosa, C. Scoushe CreateSpace (518 pp.) $19.00 paperback | $7.00 e-book Jun. 21, 2012 978-1453845790 A story of coming-of-age, of nurturing and of the fact that it does indeed take a village to raise a child. Or to raise seven of them, for that matter.

Novelist Rosa (Reflections on a Stone, 2011, etc.) takes Lumberville, Penn., on the Delaware River, and peoples it with very memorable characters in the early 20th century. Angelo Giusto, though only 9, is the oldest of the seven orphaned Giustos who have been scattered from Brooklyn to orphanages far and wide. He plans to find all his siblings and make the family whole again. At the outset, he becomes the protector of a little African-American orphan boy, James Houston, who is picked on mercilessly. Fearless Angelo becomes James’ hero. Hearing that two of the Giusto brothers have been sent to Kansas, Angelo and James resolve to get there somehow and bring them back. But they get only as far as Lumberville, the village that welcomes and nurtures them. The main characters are Angelo and Penny Brown, a woman who has lost her only child and whose callow husband has run off. Penny, like Angelo, is tough, resourceful, and relentlessly optimistic. Civil War veteran and amputee Zeke Thompson comes out of a previous Rosa novel (Zeke Thompson, American Hero, 2011) to oversee the boys’ upbringing and is ably assisted by the ingenious and perceptive Frank Martin, a man with a mysterious past. Lumberville is an idyllic place, and the reader is reminded of Tom Sawyer’s Missouri village, or Mayberry, RFD. But there are real toads in this garden, and the good guys—just as protective of the children as Angelo is of James—find and root them out. Rosa is a gifted storyteller who makes hardly a misstep. And at 500 pages, she does not stint. An afterword tells us just who in Rosa’s real life inspired these characters. And for those who like a Dickensian sweep, the novel ends with a grand retrospective of what the Giusto kids, all grown up, have made of their lives as the midcentury nears.

Reminiscent of one of those wonderful 19th-century doorstop novels.

THE STITCHER OF SHEEP Theriot, J.E. Gravel Road Press (120 pp.) $7.95 paperback Jul. 4, 2012 978-0984896417

A whirlwind collection of more than 100 different dreams over the course of two years, ostensibly dreamt by the author, JETHERIOT. | kirkus.com | indie | 1 October 2012 | 2289

“One woman’s detailed account of her journey from Europe through the Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.” from mint tea to maori tattoo!

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This curious book forays into the most logicaverse, frightening and primal aspects of human psychology—not as it exists in textbooks, but in the nightly occurrence of sleep. The results are as comical as they are unsettling: In turn, the narrator finds himself at the Grammys, at scenes of animal mutilation and resurrection, and discovering a briefcase made of glass but filled with magic wands. Often, the accounts are rich with the visual, auditory and even gustatory sensations that can appear so sharply in REM sleep. In a particularly vibrant dream, the speaker remembers that he played a scale on a piano painted in the colors of the rainbow: “pewter, platinum, lavender, lime, rosewood, lemonwood, cocoanut.” Other seemingly nonsensical but beautiful scenes inhabit the volume, which is usually captivating regardless of its veracity (the book’s back cover claims that the dreams were recorded “without embellishment or exaggeration”). Though most of the book seems concerned with description over analysis, the depictions sometimes veer into philosophy, as when he encounters a “human gargoyle” or when—in a moment vaguely reminiscent of Gulliver’s Travels—JETHERIOT views an “elfin creature” through a pair of binoculars, only to find that the creature is actually himself.

Moments like these prompt questions about how the self relates to the unconscious, but the book doesn’t pursue those trains of thought.

There doesn’t seem to be a coherent, unifying direction for the book, which speaks to either its failure or success, depending on expectations: Readers eager to peer inside a sleeping man’s head will find plenty of enjoyment, but those who desire a digestible revelation from all these midnight musings will be disappointed.

An entertaining, kaleidoscopic dream journal.

MINT TEA TO MAORI TATTOO! ‘A unique backpacking experience’

Veranen-Phillips, Carolina Bright Pen (354 pp.) $15.95 paperback | $3.50 e-book Jun. 21, 2012 978-0755214730 One woman’s detailed account of her journey from Europe through the Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. |

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While working as a plant biologist in Berkshire, England, 26-year-old Carolina VeranenPhillips finds herself caught in the drudgery of a professional life. Against all rational judgment—as well as suggestions from friends and family—Carolina leaves her job to embark on a yearlong adventure to the southern hemisphere in hopes of achieving a sense of fulfillment and personal growth. From sharing mint tea with locals in the Middle East to camping in remote areas of Africa and Australia, Veranen-Phillips offers a view of the female traveler that is both alive and peppered with humility. Despite the pitfalls of group travel, her writing reveals a nearly pathological positivity; she attempts to find the good in all people and experiences, and most importantly, to trust that the tides of life are rich with meaning and opportunity. Her close brushes with danger teach her the importance of living each day with vigor and gratefulness, as she navigates the winding—and at times underdeveloped—path of the traveler. At the end of her journey, she’s forced to reconcile her feelings of estrangement and the pressures of assimilating back into the working world.

Her travels and the previous time she spent in England leave her alienated from French culture and unable to comfortably return to the French lifestyle. The story ends quickly with an accelerated portrayal of the following years in her life, highlighted by her new marriage and children. Given her initial progressive views on single femininity and active self-exploration, this curt, underexplored outline of her future makes for an anticlimactic finale.

An inspiring journey that could use a more profound conclusion.

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Kate White: Former Cosmo Editor and Best-selling Author on ‘How I Did It’ b y

k ate

wh ite

In some ways I guess you could say I owe being an author to a stubborn mallard duck. When I was in first grade, the teacher gave everyone in the class a very basic writing assignment. I don’t recall exactly what it was—it might have been simply to practice our letters— but I vividly remember that I chose to ignore her instructions.

Instead, I wrote a little story about my grandfather taking me to see the ducks. I described—obviously in the most rudimentary way, since I was no genius—how when we were about to drive away, we noticed a duck squatting in the middle of the

road. It refused to budge. My grandfather went over to shoo it out of the way, and the duck startled both of us by taking off in flight.

Even though that was long ago, I still recall how compelled I was to tell my story—despite the fact that I’d been instructed to do something else. A day or two later, the teacher passed back all the stories except mine, and then she asked me to come to the front of the classroom. I realized that I was in trouble. I’d broken the rules, and now I was about to be humiliated in front of everyone. I felt utter shame as I walked to the front of the room But instead of chastising me, my first-grade teacher asked me to read my story to the rest of the class and also the class next door to us. Then she mounted it on construction paper and hung it on the wall (let’s hear it for good teachers!).

What an awesome rush I felt that day. At 6, I got to experience not only the exquisite pleasure that comes from writing a story, but also the thrill of being praised for it. That’s when I began dreaming about being a published writer.

But it wasn’t a clear path ahead. As I grew up, part of me wanted to write novels. I loved fiction then, especially Nancy Drew books, and I imagined myself one day churning out mysteries with a female sleuth as the protagonist.

But I liked other kinds of writing too. I put out a little newspaper on my block called the Orville Street News (we were shortlisted for a Pulitzer) and later my own newspaper for my freshman class in high school. I also loved plays and wrote some that I tried to stage with the kids on my block as actors (aka herding cats). And by 14, I’d also developed a fascination with magazines. I used to sometimes picture myself sitting in a cute little office in Manhattan writing the kinds of pieces I saw in the pages of Seventeen and Glamour. I knew I wanted to write, but I just wasn’t sure yet what

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kind of writer I was destined to be.

In college, I was thrilled to win Glamour magazine’s “Top Ten College Women Contest,” and that enabled me to finagle a job as an editorial assistant at the magazine. A career path began to take shape—with me following where the opportunities were rather than definitely choosing one type of writing over another. Eventually, I became feature writer for Glamour, as well as a monthly columnist. I wrote fun pieces like “I Was a Clown for a Day with Ringling Brothers Circus” and “My Night at a Sex Toy Party.” Over time, I moved up in a variety of jobs at different magazines, finally becoming the editor-inchief of one, then another and another and another. The icing on the cake was being named as the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan 14 years ago. When I told the news to my husband, he grinned and said, “Wait, you mean I’m going to bed tonight with the editor of Cosmo?” I had a sweet career going, and I loved it.

There was just one tiny problem. I never let go of my dream to write books as well.

So I told myself that somehow I was going to try to make it happen. Whenever I had a spare moment, I’d jot down ideas, and I even wrote up several proposals for nonfiction books. Nothing seemed very compelling. Finally, I told myself that I was trying to force things, and I needed to wait for the right idea to appear and grab me by the lapels. After a former employee wrote an article saying I was the antithesis of a good girl, a friend said, “There’s your book idea.”

Yes, I thought. I’ll call it, Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do. I got a contract in no time, because the idea really resonated with women at publishing houses (see, it pays to make sure you’ve got a strong concept).

But then I had to figure out how I was going to pull it off with a full-time job.

I decided I’d clear the decks at night

“If you are going to try to write when you have a full-time job, you must steal time from someplace. Make a list of what you can unload . . . . For me the “dump-it list” included learning tennis, learning a foreign language, shopping trips and even, for a time, working out.”

and do it then. My husband was a TV anchor during those years, in charge of an early-morning newscast, and so after he and the kids were in bed, I pulled out my laptop and wrote, with Law and Order reruns keeping me company (and awake!).

I loved offering career advice, but over time I faced the fact that I was still yearning to try fiction. It seemed greedy, but I hated to let that old dream go. I spent months working on the first chapters of a mystery called If Looks Could Kill with a sleuth named Bailey Weggins. Because publishers were familiar with me from my nonfiction, I got bids based on only five chapters and an outline. I still h0ad to write the damn book, but the early approval gave me momentum.

There was a problem though. When I tried to write the additional pages, the words didn’t want to come. With some experimentation, I discovered that fiction happened far more easily for me if I did it in the morning. So suddenly, after years of being a night owl, I had to become a morning person. God, that was awful at first. But the book was a hit, shooting to No. 1 on Amazon after it became “Ripa’s first book club pick” on Live with Regis & Kelly.

It’s been crazy at times to fit being an author into my life, but there are a few things that have made it easier.

First, I waited to try fiction until after my kids were no longer babies and were sleeping later on Saturdays and Sundays. I could write early on weekend mornings without taking time away from them. It meant, though, that I was in my 40s when my first novel was published. Call me a late bloomer!

Another key strategy: If you are going to try to write when you have a full-time job, you must steal time from someplace. If you aren’t willing to throw things overboard, those extra hours won’t just miraculously appear.

Make a list of what you can unload. For me the “dump-it list” included learning tennis, learning a foreign language, shopping trips and even, for a time, working out. I don’t have a personal Facebook page, so that’s one huge time-suck I’ve been able to avoid. So far, the trade-offs have been worth it (and I’m learning Spanish now!).

And though it took me awhile to discover this, I also came to see the importance of creating my own writer’s cocktail: the mix of ingredients that make writing appealing and doable. I can write nonfiction anywhere—on a plane, on a subway, in front of a TV. But for fiction, I need a flat desk, very little visual noise, quiet except for opera playing, a candle burning and a small womblike room.

It took me a long time to figure this out (and I had to give up a nice rolltop desk in the process), but after lots of trial and error, I got it. If you are having a tough time getting the words out, experiment with your cocktail.

Lastly I have to pay tribute to a time management trick I have mentioned on other occasions. It comes from a guy named Edwin Bliss, and it’s called “slice the salami.” In his book on time management, Bliss explained that one of the reasons we don’t tackle big projects—even though deep down we want to—is that we make them too daunting. Have you ever sworn to yourself you’d write for the whole day? That could scare anyone away.

Bliss says that projects become more appetizing if we make them small, just as salami becomes tastier-looking if you slice it nicely instead of displaying it in a chunk the size of a groundhog. I started the writing process by telling myself I’d work for only 15 minutes a day. Even in that short a time, the pages began to come, and eventually, I began staying longer and longer at my desk.

Now you have to pry me away!

I SHOULDN’T BE TELLING YOU THIS

Kate White HarperCollins (368 pp.) $24.99 Sept. 18, 2012 978-0-06-212212-4

9 Kate White has run five major magazines and is the New York Times best-selling author of two thrillers, Hush and The Sixes, and the Bailey Weggins mystery series. White is also the author of popular career books for women, including the best-selling Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do. Her latest, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This, is out now.

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