November 1, 2011: Vol. LXXIX, No 20

KIRKUS v o l. l x x i x, n o. 2 1

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REVIEWS

t h e w o r l d’s t o u g h e s t b o o k c r i t i c s f o r mo r e t h a n 7 5 y e a rs fiction

nonfiction

children & teens

Gregory Maguire completes his series The Wicked Years with a fun, action-filled novel p. 1973

The American Society of Magazine Editors presents a bounty of periodical perfection p. 1987

Nick Lake explores two Haitis: the one born from revolution and the other ravaged by earthquake. p. 2019

kirkus q&a

featured indie

Acclaimed political commentator Chris Matthews discusses his latest book, a personal portrait of John F. Kennedy p. 2002

Versatile author Neal Pollack discusses his venture into the world of e-book publishing p. 2036

w w w. k i r k u s r e v i e w s . c o m

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interactive e-books p. 1961 fiction p. 1963 mystery p. 1978

science fiction & fantasy p. 1985 nonfiction p. 1987

children & teens p. 2015 kirkus indie p. 2031

Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N # President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N Editor E L A I N E S Z E WC Z Y K eszewczyk@kirkusreviews.com Managing/Nonfiction Editor E R I C L I E B E T R AU eliebetrau@kirkusreviews.com Features Editor M O L LY B RO W N molly.brown@kirkusreviews.com

Ferocious Heroines B Y SA RA H WENDELL

Children’s & YA Books VICKY SMITH vicky.smith@kirkusreviews.com Kirkus Indie Editor P E R RY C RO W E perry.crowe@kirkusreviews.com Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH Assistant Indie Editor REBECCA CRAMER rebecca.cramer@kirkusreviews.com

Romance readers like strong heroines, for the most part. We like reading about women who think for themselves, who aren’t easily led or influenced and who are resilient and can achieve a degree of self-confidence or self-actualization over the course of the novel. A heroine who sits around waiting for the hero to show up, rock her world with a few orgasms and make everything all better and more awesomer than ever before does not a very delightful romance make. It’s really quite boring. I yawned typing that.

A step beyond merely strong heroines, though, are the fierce heroines. Sometimes I love reading about ferocious heroines. Sometimes angry, sometimes violent and always incredibly strong and determined—I love heroines like this. They can be violent and do things I’d never do in my life, like kill a staggering number of other characters before the last page of the book. They can be brusque, cruel, demanding and harsh—but as much as I dislike people like that in real life, there are times when I love reading about women like this in romance.

Women are not as a rule taught to be competitive. Female models of behavior in most forms showcase passive aggression and stealth ass-hattery instead of healthy and direct competition and assertiveness. Aggression and anger are not feminine traits. But in a fierce heroine, the most ass-kicking-est kind, aggression, anger, a propensity for violence when needed and a complete lack of demure apology for all of the above is refreshing because it is so different from the norm.

Paranormal romance has left ample room for female violence and aggression to be explored in detail, with very thought-provoking and enjoyable results. Shelley Laurenston’s shape-shifters are all incredibly strong and have no guilt or conflicted feelings about the violence they must sometimes create. Laurenston also wrote a series of marvelously bloody violent fairy-tale–type books as GA Aiken, starting with Dragon, Actually (Zebra, 2008). The first line of the cover copy says it all for this book and for the series: “It’s not always easy being a female warrior with a nickname like Annwyl the Bloody.”

Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series is replete with fierce women, most notably the Valkyries, who are clawed warriors with strength and no limit to what they can and will do to protect themselves and one another. My favorite of her Valkyrie heroines is Kaderin the Cold Hearted from No Rest for the Wicked (Pocket, 2006), who has no feelings and does not back down from any kill. There’s one scene where she’s sharpening her claws—I love that she literally has claws. No hiding those!

I usually don’t enjoy violence in romance, but when the heroine is ferocious to the point that she destroys all the feminine stereotypes as forcefully as possible, I enjoy the reading experience tremendously. It reminds me that, contrary to what’s considered ladylike and appropriate, there are times where I can, and should, and do indeed kick some ass. Maybe not with the full collection of firearms and powers these women possess, but they do give me a little nudge to find my own inner fierceness.

Sarah Wendell is the co-creator, editor and mastermind of the popular romance blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Visit her at kirkusreviews.com.

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This Issue’s Contributors Maude Adjarian • Mark Athitakis • Joseph Barbato • Amy Boaz • Will Boisvert • Lee E. Cart • Kelli Daley • Gregory F. DeLaurier • David Delman • Daniel Dyer • Lisa Elliott • Gro Flatebo • Peter Franck • Devon Glenn • Bracha Goykadosh • Peter Heck • Sam Kerbel • Robert M. Knight • Paul Lamey • Louise Leetch • Judith Leitch • Peter Lewis • Elsbeth Lindner • Matthew Mahoney • Joe Maniscalco • Melissa A. Marsh • Don McLeese • Gregory McNamee • Chris Messick • Clayton Moore • Liza Nelson • Mike Newirth • Randall Nichols • John Noffsinger • Brandon Nolta • Mike Oppenheim • Jim Piechota • William E. Pike • Gary Presley • John T. Rather • Karah Rempe • Mark A. Salfi • Michael Sandlin • Mihir Shah • William P. Shumaker • Barry Silverstein • Rosanne Simeone • Wendy Smith • Margot E. Spangenberg • Justin Stark • Claire Trazenfeld • Steve Weinberg • Rodney Welch • Carol White • Chris White • Joan Wilentz • Marc Zucker

interactive e-books BABY PANDA’S NEW HOME

interactive e-books for children

Cambou, Don Zentro Media $3.99 | Aug. 10, 2011 1.0.1; Aug. 24, 2011

A photo/video montage that chronicles the life of Zhen Zhen, a baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo. Zentro Media has partnered with producer/documentarian Cambou to educate kids about pandas and their plight as an endangered species. Zhen Zhen was born as a result of the zoo having “put mama and papa pandas together so they can have babies.” In fact, the app includes embedded video of the birth, though it’s completely gore and drama-free; it contains nothing at all that would be inappropriate for young children.

Throughout the 34 pages, there are accounts of how zookeepers care for the fuzzy creatures, plenty of information about the animals’ habits and needs and a generous pitch about why conservation efforts are both necessary and important. Each page contains at least one bamboo frame that holds a video or photographs. Narration is interrupted when video frames are tapped, but it continues when the frame holds only a photograph. In addition, the app provides regular opportunities to summon panda facts and take part in “activities” (finger painting to reveal a photo or to turn grayscale images to color, for example). The photos are vivid and clear, and the videos will evoke many a smile.

Narration makes it a book, but multi-media reigns supreme in this compelling account of conservation efforts. (iPad storybook app. 4-11)

HANNAH HABEEBEE MCHATS

Callander, Bronwyn Illus. by Callander, Bronwyn Frubeez $0.99 | Sep. 13, 2011 Series: Frubeez, 1.1; Sep. 13, 2011

The newest of the alliterative Frubeez apps introduces hat-happy Hannah, a googly-eyed lass with a taste for rib-tickling toppers.

Using a mix of photos and flat, silkscreen-style graphics, Callander creates a two-toned orange child with oversized eyes and a giant button in the middle of her tummy. Hannah models 18 types of headgear that range widely. A tartan tam has its own pair of eyes, and a sugary cupcake disappears bite by bite. There are bursts of flowers, twinkling halogen lights and a boom box broadcasting a funky beat, as well as a lollipop-chomping monster and a melting blob of goo. In a clever literacy-building feature, the lively audio narration doesn’t run automatically but is activated only by tapping the big, bright rhymed text on each screen. Tapping Hannah herself brings up a snatch of music or other sound effect, a bit of animation and a comment or giggle. Though the verse seems a bit forced at times—”She had hundreds of hats all stylishly fab. / She even had a hat for her pet hermit crab!”—its vigorous rhythms are a match for the art’s visual energy and the unusually quick, engagingly varied interactive effects. Hannah ultimately solves her storage issue by opening a boutique, and she joins her cheering stock to utter a “See you again soon” that’s likely to be as much an accurate prediction as a polite wish.

Another tip-top turn from the creator of Treetop Ted (2011). (iPad storybook app. 2-5)

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THE TRIPLETS AND THE LITTLE MERMAID Cromosoma Cromosoma $1.99 | Jul. 19, 2011 1.02; Sep. 15, 2011

There may be a story hiding behind the layers of cuteness and gimmickry, but anyone would be forgiven for not recognizing it as the Hans Christian Andersen tale.

In this app, part of a series featuring overalls-wearing, curlyhaired triplets, the sea tale is told on a stage, complete with a curtain and footlights. The framing device is clever at first— backdrops, props and characters appear as they would in a theater, dropping in and sliding by—but they’re in service of a brief, unsatisfying adaptation. Perhaps it’s a rough translation from |

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one of the other languages the app is available in (Spanish and Catalan), but the text often reads like a set of colorless assembly directions: “But the Little Mermaid rescues the Prince. The Little Mermaid falls in love with the Prince.” The ending, closer(ish) to the original tale than the Disney happily-ever-after, is wobbly and strange. After diving into the sea, the Little Mermaid is taken away by fairies and turned into “a beautiful star next to the moon.” The app’s most ambitious feature, “Animate your own tale,” allows users to install a free version of the app on a separate device and build scenes on stage from it. Nothing about the feature is very impressive except the fuss involved in getting it going.

Given the number of higher-quality “Little Mermaid” apps available, this one would be better off lost at sea. (iPad storybook app. 4-6)

Plainly descended from a food processor but sounding like E.T. and sporting a “holo-projector” capable of throwing up tiltresponsive 3-D images when tapped, Bobo the robot squires viewers through introductions to 21 light-related topics. These range from the sun (and planets), color and fire to Thomas Edison, the human eye and bioluminescence. Opening either in succession or in any order thanks to a strip of thumbnail images, each single-topic screen features a tableau of animated cartoon figures (Bobo incinerating a marshmallow over a Fire to the amusement of a chortling caveman; a set of movable mirrors and a laser to explore angles of Reflection), a lively musical background track and an (un-narrated) introductory paragraph of basic information. Three-down insets on each screen add such features as a super-slow-mo video of lightning strikes, a touch-sensitive menu of Edison’s most famous inventions, narrated slide shows of neon shop signs and kinds of animal vision and one or more pages of additional explanation or quirky facts. The animations and sound effects are all cogent, comical or both, and from lighthearted opening tutorial to spectacular closing show of nighttime fireworks, there’s nary a dull nor uninformative moment.

A (literally) illuminating survey, with exemplary choice and use of digital enhancements. (iPad informational app. 7-10)

WHAT WILL I BE?

Deery, Trisha Illus. by Deery, Trisha Dog Ears Ltd. $2.99 | Aug. 16, 2011 Series: Miss Rosie Red, 1.0; Aug. 16, 2011

GIDGET HAS A GLITCH

A wee Irish lass contemplates what to wear to a birthday party.

This storybook app hails from Northern Ireland and is an adaption of Deery’s traditional book that was released in the UK earlier this year. Miss Rosie Red, an adorable preschooler with a ginger complexion, receives a birthday invitation that leaves her wondering what she should “be” when she goes to the party. She sets out with her kitty, Cooper, to try things on for size. Rosie contemplates going as an astronaut, a fairy, a dinosaur and nearly a dozen other things before deciding to simply go as herself. In read-to-me mode, the text is voiced by an Irish 3-year-old with a slight lisp; while her accent may make it difficult for some children to understand her, the sound of it is so precious it’s almost addicting. Deery’s illustrations are warm and cheery, creating a vibe that seems to strike at the very heart of childhood innocence. Befitting the very young audience, interactions are kept to a minimum. Readers can tap individual pages to summon multiple images and the next phrase of text, and Cooper the cat reliably purrs when touched. But it is a shame that Rosie does not move when she “is so excited she can barely sit still.”

An endearing tale for tiny tots. (iPad storybook app. 1-5)

von Harten, Gwen Illus. by Hassanberg, Fernanda Frickvon Harten, Gwen Bright Bunny $1.99 | Sep. 7, 2011 1.0; Sep. 7, 2011 This boy-robot friendship story, while missing a few nuts and bolts, runs on bigger ideas: imagination, creativity, determination and hope.

Clever Erik decides to create “the best friend ever,” so he builds a robot from scratch. Erik and Gidget are inseparable and go on great adventures until Gidget blows a gasket. Eric is sad that his friend is broken, but he never gives up hope, sets out to fix him and does just that. The illustrations are colorful and wellconceived, with few distractions from the story itself. Simple navigational arrows for turning pages make it easy for parents to find their way. And most of the sound effects—when Erik and Gidget fly around the moon, when Gidget breaks down and when Erik welds his robot back together—give the story imaginative depth. On the down side, the rhyme scheme is stilted at best, which is reinforced by the narrator’s ponderous delivery; choose the read-it-myself mode. The interactivity level is low compared to other apps for this age group, but there’s at least something worth tapping. Moreover, it misses opportunities to extend the story with activities like a build-your-own-robot page or develop other characters, such as Gwen and the purple monster, the “criminals” that Erik and Gidget apprehend.

Nevertheless, it is worth tinkering around in, if mostly for the praiseworthy character of its protagonist. (iPad storybook app. 2-5)

BOBO EXPLORES LIGHT

Fusco, Craig Illus. by MacAdam, Dean Game Collage $6.99 | Sep. 15, 2011 1.1; Sep. 26, 2011 It’s science! Presented with plenty of buoyant, eye-catching graphics and cleverly designed interactive fun.

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fiction THE LAST NUDE

ZERO DAY

Avery, Ellis Riverhead (320 pp.) $25.95 | Jan. 5, 2012 978-1-59448-813-9

Baldacci, David Grand Central Publishing (448 pp.) $27.99 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-446-57301-6

Avery (The Teahouse Fire, 2006, etc.) is right in step with the current publishing trend toward romantic yet literary historical fiction with this imagined romance between the cubist/art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka and the model Rafaela, who appears in six of her paintings.

The first, longer section of the novel is told from half-Italian-American Catholic/half-Jewish Rafaela Fano’s viewpoint and set among the sexually fluid ex-pats of Paris in 1927. On her way from the Bronx to an arranged marriage in Italy at age 17, Rafaela runs away to Paris, where she quickly becomes part of the demimonde. Rafaela meets 27-year-old Tamara de Lempicka in the Bois de Boulogne (a factual encounter), and Tamara takes her home to pose. Already an established painter, Tamara is an aristocratic émigré from Poland by way of Russia and the mother of a young daughter. She is also going through a difficult divorce and has had affairs with men and women. Soon Tamara and Rafaela are lovers. Rafaela has been paid for sex by numerous men, but for the first time she falls in love. What Tamara feels is less clear because she lives within a self-invented, largerthan-life persona. She is a serious artist and her sexual passion for Rafaela seems real, but so is her passion for money. Soon she embroils Rafaela in a scheme that pits two wealthy art buyers in a competition over who gets the second version of her painting “Beautiful Rafaela,” a painting she promises Rafaela she will never sell. The novel’s shorter second section shifts to 1980 Mexico, where the aged Tamara spends her last days.

Steeped in largely feminine/lesbian sensuality and peopled by famous and cultural figures of pre–World War II Europe, the novel is a dark, sexy romp, although it ends in a disappointing whimper.

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In his 22nd, Baldacci (The Sixth Man, 2011, etc.) introduces a soldier/sleuth who fights like Rambo and thinks like Holmes.

Mountain-sized and über-brainy, John Puller is about as unconquerable as mere mortals get to be. An ex-warrior—Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else his country’s enemies happened to be entrenched—he’s served with unvarying distinction. As a consequence, the fruit salad (Army slang for medals) he pins to his dress uniform tells a glory story already the stuff of legend.

These days, however, Warrant Officer Puller fights a somewhat different kind of war—quieter perhaps, but only marginally less dangerous. Employed by the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, he battles military crime, and he is—it’s universally acknowledged—terrific at it. Still, his latest assignment has him scratching his head a bit. In tiny Drake, W.Va., a colonel, his wife and two teenage kids have been murdered, and Puller’s been ordered to find out the why and catch the who. A pitiless, carefully staged bloodbath, it’s the kind of headline-grabber that ordinarily would have had teams of special agents pell-melling into Drake, yet here’s Puller flying solo, offered not much more in terms of guidance than, “play nice with the locals.” On the upside, one of the locals turns out to be a smart, remarkably attractive police sergeant named Samantha Cole. Born and Bred in Drake, she’s in a position to provide needed insights into her town’s power structure and usual suspects list. Four dead bodies on Puller’s arrival, a total that almost at once zooms to seven with no real reason to suppose it’s reached its limit. What’s going on in this small, coal belt community to suddenly transform it into a charnel-house? Another poser for Puller: how to keep from personally adding to the count?

Relentlessly formulaic, but Puller is a strong enough protagonist to keep the pages turning.

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“A man’s closest-held beliefs about a friend, former lover and himself are undone in a subtly devastating novella.” from the sense of an ending

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

Barnes, Julian Knopf (176 pp.) $23.95 | Oct. 11, 2011 978-0-307-95712-2 A man’s closest-held beliefs about a friend, former lover and himself are undone in a subtly devastating novella from Barnes.

The author’s slim 11th novel (and fourth to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize) shouldn’t be mistaken for a frivolous one: It’s an intense exploration of how we write our own histories and how our actions in moments of anger can have consequences that stretch across decades. The novel’s narrator, Anthony, is in late middle age, and recalling friendships from adolescence and early adulthood. He’s focused on two people in particular: Adrian, a brilliant but gloomy schoolmate who routinely questioned the certainties of his history teachers, and Veronica, a harridan with whom he has a brief and tempestuous affair. After the breakup, Adrian and Veronica begin their own relationship. Anthony dashes off a bitter letter to Adrian, and when Adrian kills himself soon after, Anthony is willing to credit it to depression. But a letter he receives years later complicates the story. The novel has a love-triangle structure— one of its mysteries has to do with where Veronica’s affections resided. But its focus is more intellectual, as Anthony considers how much of his past history he’s failed to face up to, how willing he is to confront his mistakes and to what degree his own moral failings affected others. Decades after their breakup, Anthony and Veronica are forced to reconnect due to some legal tussling over Adrian’s diary, and their parrying at times becomes painfully intense. The brutality of those exchanges, coolly presented, speaks to Barnes’ skill at balancing emotional tensions and philosophical quandaries.

A knockout. What at first seems like a polite meditation on childhood and memory leaves the reader asking difficult questions about how often we strive to paint ourselves in the best possible light.

RUNNING THE RIFT

Benaron, Naomi Algonquin (384 pp.) $24.95 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-1-61620-042-8

Benaron’s first novel, about a young Rwandan runner whose Olympic ambitions collide with his country’s political unrest, is the recipient of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for “fiction that addresses issues of social justice.”

In the 1980s, Jean Patrick Nkuba and his older brother Roger are both talented athletes and scholars living an idyllic existence with their Tutsi parents at the school where their 1964

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father teaches. Then Jean Patrick’s father dies in a car crash just as tensions begin to build between the Tutsis and Hutus.

Although the Tutsis are increasingly discriminated against, Jean Patrick’s running talent sets him above the fray, especially after his Olympic potential is recognized in his early teens. Even Roger, who has joined the Tutsi Rebels, wants Jean Patrick to do whatever it takes to represent Rwanda in the Olympics. So Jean Patrick follows his Hutu Coach from high school to college. At first Coach arranges for Jean Patrick to have false Hutu identification papers. Then the government decides that allowing a Tutsi to complete internationally will bolster its humanrights reputation so Jean Patrick is made the Tutsi exception and treated like a beloved celebrity. He even attends a reception with the president. Meanwhile he has fallen in love with Bea despite Coach’s disapproval—Bea and her journalist father are Hutu dissidents against the repressive Hutu government—and made friends with a visiting professor from Boston. As the conflict intensifies, Jean Patrick must make increasingly difficult choices, a key one being whether to trust Coach. The escalating violence of Hutus against Tutsis becomes a national mania that ultimately controls Jean Patrick’s personal destiny.

The politics will be familiar to those who have followed Africa’s crises (or seen Hotel Rwanda), but where Benaron shines is in her tender descriptions of Rwandan’s natural beauty and in her creation of Jean Patrick, a hero whose noble innocence and genuine human warmth are impossible not to love. (Agent: Daniel Lazar)

CREATURES HERE BELOW

Bennett, O.H. Agate (272 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Nov. 1, 2011 978-1-932841-62-6 A fragmented novel about family fragmentation.

Bennett has no single focus here but tends to circle back to conflict within the family of Gail Neighbors. She runs a small boardinghouse in Indiana, so small, in fact, that she has only two tenants: Annie, who’s showing signs of senility and dementia, and single-mother Jackie, who’s trying to find a place to raise toddler Cole, though on occasion she still finds herself drawn back in to her previous party-loving lifestyle. Gail has two sons. Tyler, the younger, sings solos at church and generally leads an upright existence, while his older half brother, Mason Reed, is tormented by the abandonment of his father, Pony Reed, years before. At the age of 11 Mason has a brief, abortive encounter with his father, but a few years later he feels drawn in by the force field of his father’s charisma. After his father essentially pimps for Mason in trying to arrange his son’s first sexual encounter, Pony disappears again. Anguished and lost, Mason decides to go in search of him. His companions on this journey are Kenny Gamble, a drug addict and perhaps the least-likely person in the cosmos to be helpful to Mason, and his friend

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THE SPY WHO JUMPED OFF THE SCREEN

Gina. Meanwhile, back at the boardinghouse, Jackie faces the possibility of being forced to give up her beloved Cole.

Bennett diligently anatomizes both the antagonisms and love relationships of single-family households, pushing well beyond formulas and racial stereotypes.

TWELVE GATES TO THE CITY

Black, Daniel St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $25.99 | Dec. 6, 2011 978-0-312-58268-5 When you go back home, can you really put the ghosts to rest? Can you at least save some lost souls?

In Black’s (Perfect Peace, 2010) sequel to his debut novel, They Tell Me of a Home (2005), Dr. Thomas L. Tyson (TL) returns home less than an hour after leaving. Back in Swamp Creek, Ark., TL is faced with several mysteries and challenges. Distraught over his sister’s untimely death, he worries about the role his adoptive mother, Marion, may have played in Sister’s death. Saddened by the death of his birth mother, Ms. Swinton, he wants to prove himself by taking over Ms. Swinton’s role as the teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. Marion challenges him to become a real man and determine his own fate, but TL must first rid himself of ties that pull him away from Swamp Creek, namely his neglected girlfriend back in New York and his best friend, George, who is desperately in love with him—and perhaps TL is in love with George, too. The town misfit Cliffesteen offers TL another mystery to solve: What happened to her Aunt Easter, a woman the townsfolk feared as magical? Once established as the new schoolteacher, TL accepts the responsibilities of not only educating the children of Swamp Creek, but also of rescuing one particular young boy from his abusive and sexually bigoted father. Further complicating matters, TL is hallucinating a city of gold marked by 12 gates, and Cliffesteen claims Sister is there. So many plot strands quickly overwhelm Black’s novel.

Interspersed chapters in Sister’s otherworldly voice attempt to explain God’s plan for TL, yet not even Sister resolves the mysteries presented here.

This novel could have been a magical tale of spiritual discovery, yet it buckles under the weight of its own complexity.

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Caplan, Thomas Viking (400 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 9, 2012 978-0-670-02321-9

Caplan’s (Line of Chance, 1979, etc.) adventure novel shoots for high concept by assigning hero duties to a soldier turned film star turned spy.

Ty Hunter is an accidental actor who made it big in Tinseltown. He was a special-ops–tested military intelligence officer recovering from injuries when he met a film producer. But Caplan doesn’t rush Hunter into play.

First there’s a stop in Kansas City to meet Wilhelm Claussen, owner of an international construction company. Claussen’s ready to back out of a deal with a Russian group. The scene shifts to a missile installation near Russia’s Sea of Azov where warheads are being removed. Next it’s the Cannes film festival. There Ty enters the narrative and encounters Ian Santal, once a science guru, once a money manipulator, and now a billionaire financier. Also on the scene are Santal’s protege, Philip Frost, part of the official nuclear-weapons watchdog team at Azoz, and Isabella Cavill, celebrated jewelry designer, Santal’s goddaughter and the novel’s requisite love interest.

Ty is next called to Camp David to meet the president and his top security adviser. They enlist Hunter to go undercover.

Rumors are circulating that Santal has nefarious contacts. It develops that Santal’s megalomaniacal idea is to assure peace by reframing the balance of nuclear power—while earning a tidy profit. Ty’s mission-almost-impossible is to discover if Santal threat is real. Caplan litters the pages with exotic locations, beautiful people and more than enough scene-setting, exposition, sparkling conversation and back story to present a tutorial on the lives of the mega-rich. The denouement comes at Gibraltar, where good guys and bad guys meet aboard Santal’s yacht, Surpass. That’s a fitting moniker, since everything within the story involves stratospheric superlatives—”sleek furnishings,” “most amazing stones,” “great eclectic mansion,” “far too sophisticated.” Characters are stock players, including Middle Easterners with disposable billions, a quartet of computer nerds and a bad guy escaping to plague Hunter in Caplan’s next Bondian escapade.

An adventure where atmosphere dominates action.

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UNDERGROUND TIME

de Vigan, Delphine Bloomsbury (272 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-60819-712-5 A prizewinner and bestseller in France, de Vigan (No and Me, 2010, etc.) is a master of the spare (and of despair) in this brief novel about two unhappy Parisians who may or may not be destined to meet.

The novel takes place during a single day, May 20, when a psychic has told widowed mother of three Mathilde that she will meet a man.

Although her corporate job has become a nightmare since her supervisor Jacques turned against her months earlier after she mildly disagreed with him in front of others, Mathilde starts the day excited that something new is going to happen. She even laughs with her children, a moment that becomes more poignant in memory as her day falls apart. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Paris, Thibault, who has given up a safe suburban GP practice to be a traveling emergency doctor (his job does not quite translate in the U.S.), starts the day by breaking up with his unloving girlfriend, then makes his medical service calls in a mood that swings between rage and despair. When a woman falls at the metro station Mathilde helps her. Thibault is called but arrives just after Mathilde has left. Late getting to work, Mathilde discovers Jacques has moved her out of her office into a humiliating spot near the men’s room and has stripped her of all of her responsibilities. She and Jacques both know she cannot be fired, but he continues to ratchet up his campaign to make her work life increasingly miserable to the point of unbearable. As Mathilde wanders through the Kafkaesque corporate labyrinth, trying to find an escape from Jacque’s reach, Thibault drives the city streets overwhelmed by an exhausting caseload of patients whose lives have shriveled into hopelessness. Will these two ever meet? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

This is ultimately a corporate horror story—often claustrophobic to the point of oppressive, but undeniably disturbing.

THE NIGHT ETERNAL

del Toro, Guillermo & Hogan, Chuck Morrow/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $26.99 | Oct. 25, 2011 978-0-06-155826-9 The final book in director del Toro and thriller writer Hogan’s (The Killing Moon, 2007, etc.) epic vampire trilogy.

Since the end of the previous book, the Master, an ancient being and source of a blood-borne parasitic infestation with vampire-like symptoms, has exerted near total control over the world. His vampire minions and a few human collaborators have set up concentration camps dedicated solely to harvesting blood for vampire consumption, while the rest of humanity 1966

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scratches out a meager existence, watching re-runs on television and waiting in terror for their turn to be hauled to the camps. Hope for humanity is at a low ebb. Nuclear explosions have left the planet in a state of near-perpetual night. Abraham Setrakian, the old-world vampire hunter who has been trailing the Master for decades, is dead, and Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, the epidemiologist who first understood the nature of the new threat, now spends most of his time in a pill-induced haze, pining for his lost son, who, though still human, is under the Master’s thrall. There are still pockets of resistance, though.

Gangbanger turned fearless vampire hunter Augustin “Gus” Elizade has set up base in the now-unused Columbia University campus, and exterminator Vasiliy Fet is working to translate an ancient, silver-bound book that Setrakian seemed to think contained the knowledge necessary to destroy the Master for good. When Dr. Nora Martinez, Goodweather’s former colleague and lover who is now attached to Fet, is taken to a blood camp, Goodweather, Fet and Elizalde, along with the mysterious half-vampire Mr. Quinlan, must come together to free her, and then to find a way to end the Master’s reign once and for all.

While one of the principal charms of the series so far has been its unique, near-plausible scientific treatment of vampirism, the third book introduces elements of the supernatural, which is somewhat disappointing. Still, the prose crackles, the plot barrels forward with increasing momentum and the authors’ knack for thoughtful horror and striking imagery remains intact.

A satisfying conclusion to an intelligent, utterly chilling horror trilogy. (Author appearances in Boston, Los Angeles and New York)

LIGHTNING RODS

DeWitt, Helen New Directions (280 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 5, 2011 978-0-8112-1943-3 DeWitt’s offbeat debut (The Last Samurai, 2000) caused a stir, but this second novel, a satirical take on sexual harassment, misfires badly.

Joe has tried selling encyclopedias and failed. Same for vacuum cleaners. He tells himself to get a grip. He’s in his 30s (that’s all we know about him) and is a manifest loser, but with the help of an expensive suit he turns his life around, persuading a company to try his concept of lightning rods. Bona-fide female staff members will provide occasional sexual services to male employees. They will be randomly selected through a computer program, and their anonymity protected. The point? To stave off sexual harassment lawsuits by providing relief. Sex-and-theoffice entertainments have an impressive history, from Billy Wilder’s classic 1960 movie The Apartment to the current TV hit Mad Men, but these shows involve flesh-and-blood characters.

DeWitt’s dubious premise is that harassment is caused solely by high testosterone levels; she excludes the urge to dominate. Just insert a panel opening in the Disabled Toilet, have the guy enter the “gal” from behind and voilà. Don’t expect any frissons from

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“The consequences of being raised by hippie parents in a commune begin to loom large for two siblings.” from wild abandon

their contact. The first guy, DeWitt writes coyly, “availed himself of the facility.” But the “installation” works, and not just for Ed, the prime stud; the harassment ends, along with DeWitt’s powers of invention. After Joe has a chance meeting with a dwarf on an airport shuttle bus, DeWitt riffs on adjustable height toilets; there’s even a moment of toilet farce when the obese HR guy comes between Ed and his lightning rod. There are a few wrinkles (a black employee must be accommodated to prevent discrimination charges, the FBI must be mollified) but no drama in this lifeless work. Even when Joe invites his most free-spirited lightning rod home to his loft, there’s no action.

A dreary screed that too often reads like a primer for salesmen.

WHEN ELVES ATTACK

Dorsey, Tim Morrow/HarperCollins (208 pp.) $16.99 paperback | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-06-209284-7 Multitasking maniac Serge Storms (Electric Barracuda, 2011, etc.) slows the flow when he concentrates on having a down-home Florida Christmas.

Roaring into Tampa, Serge has just two wishes: to become a family man like his old friend Jim Davenport, and to Take Christmas Big. And what better way to start than to return to Triggerfish Lane and move next door to good old Jim? Jim’s wife Martha is already stressed to the max by her mother-in-law’s annual holiday visit, complete with Mother Davenport’s generous gesture of wiping down the bathroom with bleach before using it. But the sight of Serge’s 1972 Chevelle pulling up at the curb drives excitable Martha’s anxiety to fever pitch, especially after her teenage daughter finds the newly minted family man a worthy role model. In Serge’s mind, no family is complete without its feminine side, so he beefs up his household, so far limited to his drug-addled pal Coleman, with the addition of City and Country, two chicks on the run since an incident in a Tuscaloosa bar. Now Serge can work on Taking Christmas Big, starting out by taking Country under the mistletoe and proving that a kiss isn’t just a kiss. Then there’s the 10-foot tree that almost fits through the front door and Coleman’s dope-laced gingerbread. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without presents, so Serge and Coleman, dressed as elves, head to the Tampa Mall to shop—and to discuss Martha’s Thanksgiving Day dust-up with mall security.

Although Serge is thinking big, Dorsey’s holiday gift is small, with his new, linear story line a mere shadow of his mayhem-filled priors. (Author appearances in Atlanta, Birmingham, Lexington, Madison and Milwaukee)

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WILD ABANDON

Dunthorne, Joe Random (336 pp.) $25.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-4000-6684-1

The consequences of being raised by hippie parents in a commune begin to loom large for two siblings.

Deservedly lauded for his debut novel and its subsequent indie-film adaptation, Dunthorne (Submarine, 2008) loses some traction but gains some writing chops with his sophomore outing. The book is set at Blaen-y-Llyn, a commune in south Wales whose experiment in self-sufficiency is beginning to fray at the edges after 20 years of isolation. The locals (and some of the residents) call it The Rave House, following a particularly noisy birthday party for teenager Kate. After years of exposure to nudity, drugs, goats and self-indulgence, Kate has decided to rebel in the most divisive way she can think up: dating a meat-headed local boy named Geraint and indulging in the banal amenities of suburban life outside the commune. At the heart of her rebellion is the growing tension between her parents: Don, the community’s bearded founder in love with his own skewed ideology, and Freya, a long-suffering spouse whose growing sense of discontent is throwing Blaen-y-Llyn into disarray. A number of other odd characters fill out the ensemble, from a dope-addled romantic smitten with another member of the community to a former ad man who appears to be quietly documenting the community’s demise for his own selfish purposes. The book’s beating heart is Kate’s brother Albert, a 12-year-old whose burgeoning sexuality, scalding intellect and off-kilter sense of humor put him at odds with everyone around him. The best scenes are those that put Albert and his beloved sister at odds. “Where were Mum and Dad while you were being brainwashed?” asks Albert. “I wash my own brain,” Kate retorts. While it lacks the self-awareness and cohesion of Submarine, this novel holds up admirably as a funny if meandering portrait of a postmodern family whose collapse is as meaningful as their coming together.

A fresh perspective on modern culture, peppered with colorful dialogue that keeps the story afloat. (Agent: Georgia Garrett)

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THE DETACHMENT

Eisler, Barry Thomas & Mercer (322 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Oct. 18, 2011 978-1-6121-8155-4 Thriller specialist Eisler (Inside Out, 2010, etc.) combines characters from his two regular series in a muddled but mostly exciting tale of assassination and government conspiracy.

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he’s reluctantly united with Ben Treven and the mysterious Larison. Treven, Larison, Rain and Rain’s frequent associate Dox are all recruited by the diabolical Col. Scott “Hort” Horton for a covert mission of alleged utmost importance to national security, targeting and taking out high-level U.S. government officials supposedly linked to an impending coup. Naturally, things are not what they seem, and the four fiercely independent operatives soon find themselves on the run, forced to team up and trust each other while figuring out the truth behind Hort’s motives. The combination of worlds has Eisler awkwardly alternating between first- and third-person narration, as the story switches from Rain’s perspective to explore the other characters.

The need to serve four separate protagonists also minimizes the chance to focus on personal details, and the love interests and family members who’ve appeared in previous novels are absent here. In their place is a lean and efficient story of violence and betrayal, and Eisler’s attention to detail gives the proceedings an air of authenticity. The author is also increasingly interested in pushing a political agenda, foregrounding his ideas about government abuses of power and widespread corruption. The conspiracy theories (bolstered by numerous citations from various online sources, listed in an appendix) sometimes threaten to undermine and overwhelm the story, even though they mostly come off as convincing within the world that Eisler has created.

The fast-paced, often-breathless suspense makes up for most of the shortcomings, and readers will be eager for more adventures from this quartet of deadly enforcers.

LOVE IN A NUTSHELL

Evanovich, Janet & Kelly, Dorien St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $27.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-312-65131-2 A nice gal tries to solve a mystery in the microbrewery owned by a hometown boy in this classic cross-genre read.

Kate Appleton has moved to her family’s summer home with dreams of turning the lake house, affectionately known as The Nutshell, into a bed-and-breakfast. Unfortunately, a bachelor’s degree in drama doesn’t open many doors to employment in Keene’s Harbor, and what Kate needs more than anything else is a large sum of money to pay off the mortgage before the house goes into foreclosure. Enter Matt Culhane, local hottie and owner of Depot Brewing Company, a small-time tap house in the process of making it big. Not only is Matt willing to give Kate the job she demands, soon he wants to be more than just her boss. But Kate, who’s recently been burned by her ex Richard’s affair with Shayla the Homewrecker, isn’t ready to give in to Matt’s charms. She’s more interested in Matt’s promise as the key to her future, since her job with him isn’t limited to brewery work but extends to the role of full-time snoop. Matt’s been having problems of his own with someone who seems to be sabotaging his whole operation. Ever-curious Kate hopes she can find out who has turned traitor and claim 1968

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the $20,000 bonus Matt’s promised her for finding the culprit before the Nutshell’s reclaimed by the mortgage’s new holder.

Blending classic romance archetypes with an edge of mystery, the duo of Evanovich (Sizzling Sixteen, 2010, etc.) and Kelly is sure to appeal to fans of both genres with reader-friendly writing that mirrors its characters’ allAmerican appeal.

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF A NON-ENEMY COMBATANT

Gilvarry, Alex Viking (320 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 16, 2012 978-0-670-02319-6

A would-be fashion mogul comes to America to pursue the American Dream, only to wind up wearing an orange Gitmo jumpsuit.

Gilvarry’s debut novel aspires to be an allegory about how immigrant ambition has become stifled in the wake of post-9/11 paranoia. The narrator, Boyet Hernandez, arrives in New York City from the Philippines in 2002, eager to pursue a career in haute couture. But the reader knows immediately that his dreams were dashed: The novel is written in the form of a prison memoir, composed at the suggestion of his jailers as he awaits judgment from a military tribunal for allegedly consorting with terrorists. Chapters begin with observations about the camp’s cramped quarters and barely humane regulations, but the story mostly focuses on Boyet (nicknamed Boy) as he makes his slow rise in the fashion world, consorting with models, begging for favors from established designers and hustling for financing. That last effort is what gets him in trouble, because his main patron is a sketchy landlord who possesses a questionable amount of weaponizeable fertilizer. Gilvarry keeps the tone of the story lightly satirical without diminishing the seriousness of Boy’s predicament, and he skillfully captures the frenetic world of striving designers and Brooklyn hipsters. The novel’s chief flaws have more to do with structure than tone. Characters in the story besides Boy rarely become more than strictly functional (a publicist with the unfortunate name of Ben Laden is a thin signifier of law-enforcement ineptitude), and shifting between Boy’s incarceration and Manhattan memories grows repetitive and undramatic until the closing pages. A fashion writer’s faux annotations add little, and his afterword closes the book on a melodramatic note that clashes with Boy’s character.

Gilvarry is a talented writer and observer, but the satirical elements could have been better tailored.

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THE OMEN MACHINE

Goodkind, Terry Tor (528 pp.) $29.99 | Aug. 16, 2011 978-0-7653-2772-7

This new entry in Goodkind’s longstanding Sword of Truth series directly follows the events of the previous volume, Confessor (2007).

Following the dreadful and debilitating war against the Imperial Order for control of D’Hara—though there are no bodies, no wounded or any damage; the main consequence seems to have been that the leading characters lost half their brain cells—Richard, Lord Rahl and his wife Kahlan, the Mother Confessor (she neither hears nor makes any confessions), settle down at the People’s Palace to enjoy, so they hope, a period of peace and prosperity. However, everybody from the realm’s assembled dignitaries to the lowliest peasant is suddenly obsessed with prophesy. Though the prophesies all come true, they seem fairly trivial, like “the roof will fall in,” until scholars reveal that the exact same prophecies occur in an ancient tome. Then, during a terrible storm, a glass roof does fall in, causing the floor beneath to collapse and revealing the huge, ancient magic-powered machine of the title. The machine commences to churn out the same prophesies. Various unpleasant things happen, convincing the dignitaries that they should be ruled by the prophesies rather than Richard.

And, despite the intractable idiocy of the protagonists, some enemies are revealed: the Hedge Maid, whose magic is proof against Richard’s irresistible sword, and Hannis Arc, a naked, tattooed super-wizard with a grudge against the Rahls. Such is the general bewilderment that even favorite figures like the old wizard Zedd are given little to do except stand around frowning in puzzlement and stoically ignoring the obvious.

There’s general agreement that the series has gone downhill since book 6 or 7. This is book 13, dismally slapdash and often just plain dumb.

A DEVIL IS WAITING

Higgins, Jack Putnam (336 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-399-15809-4

Even the veteran novelist doesn’t seem thrilled with this one.

Times of global unease provide plenty of fictional fodder for both fans and authors of international thrillers. While the latest from the bestselling Higgins (The Judas Gate, 2011, etc.) encompasses car bombing and assassination attempts, conspiracies involving members of the IRA and the Taliban and an irresistibly gorgeous heroine who happens to be both a millionaire and an |

accomplished killer, it suffers from a curious lack of narrative momentum, stilted dialogue and implausibility even within the fictional world it inhabits. Britain is the primary setting for the British author who has more than 60 novels under his belt, though the action propels the narrative from New York to Afghanistan, as a team of British, American, French and Muslim confederates attempt to foil a plot that may involve the assassination of the president. Or revenge for the death of Osama bin Laden. Or something. The central characters within the “Prime Minister’s private army” remain Sean Dillon and Daniel Holley, under the command of General Charles Ferguson. Fans of the series will remember that both Dillon and Holley were both previously involved with the IRA, and that the latter once almost killed the former, but by now they’ve become close friends and comrades, their devotion to the British Empire unquestioned. Providing a romantic twist is the ravishing, redheaded Sara Gideon, a Jewish war hero and undercover intelligence officer enlisted

by Ferguson’s team. Everyone assumes that Holley will try to seduce her, though she spends much of the novel trying to seduce him. As has become his unfortunate tendency, Higgins attempts to advance the plot through dialogue that one can’t imagine anyone actually saying—e.g., “As you two well know, several dissident groups, all IRA in one way or another, have raised their ugly heads once again.” And “International terrorism is the scourge of our times, Mr. President, powered by fanatics who insist on extreme views. It’s like a cancer that needs to be cut out to stop it spreading.”

The world survives, but will boy get girl? Or girl get boy?

1222

Holt, Anne Translated by Delargy, Marlaine Scribner (320 pp.) $25.00 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-4516-3471-6 A train accident strands retired Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen in the middle of a fierce snowstorm with 268 other passengers, one of whom begins to murder the others in this brainy page-turner.

When ice on the tracks derails a Norwegian passenger train outside a tunnel, Wilhelmsen, not exactly a Pollyanna type ever since she was left paralyzed by a gunshot to her spine four years ago, considers herself lucky to be carried off to Finse 1222, an ancient, practically deserted hotel nearby.

Other rescued passengers are less sanguine. Adrian, an accomplished thief at 15, whines constantly; sketchy financier Steinar Aass offers a local mountain man a fortune to snowmobile him back to civilization; and investigative writer Kari Thue nearly succeeds in mounting a full-scale insurrection against the authority figures who’ve taken control of the situation. After all, there was certainly an extra carriage added to the train, and the rumors that the royal family was aboard are only fueled by the news that a section of the hotel

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“Snappy dialogue with a Southern twang, spiritual uplift and undeniably likable characters —‘Quirky Cute’ at its best.” from a grown- up kind of pretty

has been cordoned off, reserved for a group of passengers no one can identify. Even the passengers who aren’t especially impatient to get on with their lives, however, would certainly change their minds if they knew that Cato Hammer, an Oslo priest with a fondness for soccer, has been found shot to death—and that soon after Roar Hanson, another priest, tells Hanna that he knows who killed his old schoolmate, he follows him into the great beyond.

Holt (What Is Mine, 2006, etc.) makes curmudgeonly Hanna the perfectly astringent guide to this nightmare whodunit out of Ellery Queen’s The Siamese Twin Mystery and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

A GROWN-UP KIND OF PRETTY

Jackson, Joshilyn Grand Central Publishing (336 pp.) $24.99 | Jan. 25, 2012 978-0-446-58235-3 Jackson (Backseat Saints, 2010, etc.) sticks with her specialty—plucky Southern women who overcome male ill treatment from their past—in this novel about a grandmother, daughter and granddaughter who confront a suddenly uncovered family secret.

Ginny Slocumb, now 45, got pregnant at 15 after what was basically date rape and ended up raising daughter Liza as a single mom. Liza, who has always been headstrong, never named the father who impregnated her at 15. Shortly after giving birth she ran away to live a druggy life on the streets until she returned to Ginny’s home with 2-year-old Mosey and entered drug rehab.

Now that Mosey is 15, Liza and Ginny fear she will follow in their sexual steps. To help her avoid the temptations at the public high school, Liza even found the tuition money to send Mosey to private Calvary High until Liza, although drug-free for years, suffered a debilitating stroke at a Calvary function, leaving her semi-paralyzed. When a box with a baby’s jawbone inside is discovered in the Slocumb backyard, the police try to figure out if a murder has been committed, and if so by whom; it seems another infant went missing shortly before Mosey was born. The three Slocumbs react separately. Liza knows the truth, but cannot find the words in her damaged brain to explain what happened. Ginny fears what might have happened, and her efforts to protect Liza and Mosey lead her to re-activate a past relationship. Mosey, already angry at the older Slocumbs and prodded by her two friends, fellow adolescent outsiders, is emboldened to solve the mystery of the bones and her own identity; for if the dead baby belongs to Liza, who does Mosey belong to?

Snappy dialogue with a Southern twang, spiritual uplift and undeniably likable characters—”Quirky Cute” at its best.

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ALL THE FLOWERS IN SHANGHAI

Jepson, Duncan Morrow/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $13.99 paperback | Jan. 1, 2012 978-0-06-208160-5 For the second daughter of an ambitious Chinese mother, it’s suffering and regret all the way, from the class-divided 1930s to the miseries of the Cultural Revolution.

Simple but strong on detail and emotional intensity, this Hong Kong-based Eurasian author’s debut considers female roles and maternal bonds against the background of Chinese tradition, a recipe for disaster in the case of Xiao Feng, second daughter in a middle-class household. Because Xiao Feng’s sophisticated sister is expected to make a good marriage, she is left free to study flowers with her grandfather and form an idealistic attachment to a simple fisherman from the country. But when her sister dies, Xiao Feng must step into her shoes and become less a bride, more a prisoner in the opulent Sang mansion where marital sex seems closer to rape than making love. Falling pregnant and giving birth to a daughter, Xiao Feng is consumed with hatred of her circumstances and, swearing to be the last girl of her family, she gives the child away, an act that will haunt her future.

Now she changes, becomes powerful and controlling, gives her husband a son but is swallowed up by history, which inflicts undreamed-of additional sorrow, alleviated only by late glimpses of redemption and restoration.

An unremittingly bleak story, delivered with some passion.

THE SILENT OLIGARCH

Jones, Chris Morgan Penguin Press (336 pp.) $25.95 | Jan. 23, 2012 978-1-59420-319-0

In the bowels of the Russian government’s petroleum ministry lurks an anonymous bureaucrat named Konstatin Malin, at least when he is not flying off to his estate on the Côte d’Azur.

Malin secretly controls an obscure Irish company called Faringdon Holdings. More accurately, he controls Richard Lock, an Anglo-Dutch lawyer, who nominally owns Faringdon, and its pyramid of other shadowy Société Anonyme registered in random off-shore tax havens. Money flows from the Russian oil fields, and handsome amounts are diverted to these Malincontrolled enterprises. Malin made a mistake, though. He had Lock shift a few assets and sell an empty corporate shell to a fractious Greek named Aristotle Tourna. Lawsuits are filed and regulatory agencies awaken. Tourna also hires Ikertu Consulting, a corporate security firm located in London, an unofficial, non-gun-toting CIA or FBI for billionaires in trouble. Ikertu’s

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top investigator is Ben Webster, a former freelance writer with extensive experience in post-Soviet Russia. Webster knows that Richard Lock, “a fraud, a stooge, a money launderer,” is the key to Malin, but as he delves into the three-card-Monte commercial empire, he is shocked to uncover evidence that the murder of a close friend and fellow investigative reporter a decade previously may have been the result of her attempt to expose Malin. Jones’ sketches of all that is good and bad about London, Moscow, Berlin seem dead-on, right down to his marvelous detailing of the decadent lifestyle of the new Russian oligarchy, a group where school children receive Ferraris as birthday presents. His bad guy, Malin, “impermeable” eyes “dark brown and heavy, neither curious nor passive,” is thoroughly sinister. The author also is adept at constructing and explaining the complicated post-Soviet Russia ambiance.

Told in the third person, his narrative moves forward with an aura of malevolence to a conclusion too close to reality to be anything but believable.

Minimal gun-flourishing, minimal violence, maximum moral quandary.

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DEAD LOW TIDE

Lott, Bret Random (256 pp.) $25.00 | $25.00 e-book | Jan. 17, 2012 978-1-4000-6375-8 978-0-679-64425-5 e-book In Lott’s follow-up to his coming-ofage/murder mystery The Hunt Club (1998, etc.), Huger Dillard, now a grown man but not exactly mature, confronts another murder 10 years later.

Huger, 27, has never quite begun his life since the trauma of killing a man at 17. He dropped out of college and has no real career. He now lives with his newly rich mother and father “Unc” in the exclusive golfing community Landgrave outside Charleston and pines for his lost love, African-American Tabitha, now getting her post-doc at Stanford. Approaching the golf course by boat late one night—Unc likes to practice when no one is around—Unc and Huger find a woman’s body

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h g r e g o r y m a gu i r e

Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years

Gregory Maguire William Morrow (592 pp.) $26.99 Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-06-054894-0

Gregory Maguire’s accomplished literary career is the stuff that writers dream about. His creatively revisionist, bestselling novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West proved a tantalizing launch pad for its Tony Award–winning Broadway theatrical adaptation that captivated the hearts and imaginations of adults and children alike.

Maguire was grateful, sentimental but also forthright when he recently spoke to us about this fourth and final entry in the series, Out of Oz. He talked about his influences, his life and his excitement and ambivalence about what the literary road has in store. We won’t give away any hints about the outcome of this long-awaited series finale, but the esteemed author certainly opened up about the pains and passions of literary success.

I don’t want to live in its shadow either. In order to welcome the muse back into my life, I feel I need to take a pair of pinking shears to it and just let it float away. All stories have natural shapes, and they have to have an end in order for the meaning to take hold.

Q: Aside from your books in the Wicked series, your literary omnibus is largely based on books meant for children and teens. Where does your inspiration for writing children’s books come from?

Q: Did the theatrical version of Wicked live up to your expectations?

Q: Do you think you can top the success of the Wicked series?

A: The actuarial side of me that’s a business person says no. The creative, more aesthetic side of me says yes, but reminds me that I never did this for glory or the money in the first place. I think that as long as your motives are right, just do the work and see what happens. But, of course, it’s nice to make money from something that I poured my whole heart into.

A: Yes, it did. My expectations were high when it came to the caliber of people working on the production. When it opened and began to be recognized as a hit, I was overjoyed, but if it closed after a week, I would’ve been sad for the people working on it, but just happy that it came to fruition.

A: Well, it sure doesn’t come from my own three children! If I had adopted them with the intent on achieving some kind of inspiration, then that endeavor would have been a failure. The act and art of being a parent and an author form parallel universes, but each can be at odds with the other.

I continually try to remember what I liked about reading when I was a kid. It was the books that made me feel smart, that used decent vocabulary, books that were not patronizing in tone and that understood that kids can have an ironic sense of humor as well. They held a wider secret in the world than most parents, teachers and librarians were willing to admit in a court of law.

Q: Are you sad to see these characters’ adventures end?

A: There’s definitely mixed feelings. I have authorial post-partum depression about it. I’m sad, but I’ve tried to give every sense of satisfaction to the reader.

Q: You and your husband have three adopted children. What’s the secret to juggling the demands of parenthood while keeping a productive, deadline-driven writing schedule?

Q: How did you come up with the original idea to expand upon The Wizard of Oz and its characters?

A: He is an artist as well, and we have some advantages in that we are both self-employed and work in creative fields that have a sort of noncompete clause, so we can support each other. We are a two-person, live-in, day-care arrangement, so it is enormously time-consuming and time-sapping but frankly, family takes precedence. I feel like I live in a kind of useful schizophrenia!

A: I had lots of questions about the film when I saw it as a kid. But when I was in my late 20s, I had a private difficulty with a friend, and I had to ask myself one of the basic questions about character—is character changeable, pervertable, does it only grow in one direction [to improve], or can it deteriorate?

Therefore, I had to ask that about myself and about others in the world. I still do not know the answer, but in thinking about it, I wondered about the bad characters when they were young. What were they really like when they were kids? From there, it was a very quick leap to the Wicked Witch of the West. What was she like when she was young? Was she always trouble? Or was that trouble caused to her first?

Q: What keeps you busy now that the Oz series is completed?

Q: At what point and why did you decide to end the series?

A: Wicked, the Musical is such an enormous enterprise—it’s like having the Starship Enterprise tethered to my private chimney!

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–By Jim Piechota |

p hoto © A N DY N E W MA N

A: I’m lecturing here and there. I don’t know what is in the sky, once the obstruction is out of the way.

I will tell you that for a very small press here in Massachusetts, Madras Press, I am donating to charity four stories entitled “Tales Told in Oz,” that will be published in the next six months. The money raised will go to relief for Vermont libraries that suffered damage from the recent hurricane.

“Justice of sorts is done in this absorbing finale of a distinguished career.” from purgatory

floating in the marsh. Not only do the police show up, but also some intimidating naval officers from the U.S. Naval Weapons Station across the water. They were watching Unc and Huger in their boat through night goggles like the ones Unc won playing poker against base Commander Prendergast during a weekly game hosted by the father of Tabitha’s current beau.

After finding the body, Huger comes home to find Prendergast alone with his mother and creepily solicitous. Meanwhile there’s another body found the same night, a man in the trunk of his car. Are the two deaths connected? Huger wants to figure out what is going on, but mostly he wants to get Unc to his weekly poker game where Unc intends to get those militaryproperty goggles back to Prendergast—or does he? Up until a point, the novel leans toward the slightly hangdog humor of Huger’s slacker life, but suddenly in a rush of plot background and forced dialogue comes a terrorism-centered plot full of traitors and stereotypically nasty Muslims in sleeper cells.

Huger is an appealing narrator, but his story of finding himself is only moderately interesting, and the tacked-on thriller is cartoonish. (Agent: Marian Young)

OUT OF OZ

Maguire, Gregory Morrow/HarperCollins (576 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-06-054894-0 Maguire, reimaginer of Oz, completes his series The Wicked Years, which bowed in with the exuberantly zeitgeisty Wicked (1995), with this pensive but action-filled capstone.

The truest gauge of whether a fantasy series is any good, apart from the ordinary tests of writing and storytelling, is whether the world the writer imagines is complete—and whether it’s interesting enough for a reader to be bothered to go there. In the made-up–world department, Maguire is a signal success, and a captivating storyteller to boot. This concluding volume finds Dorothy Gale back in Kansas—for a time, anyway, for 16-year-old Dorothy isn’t so keen on following Aunt Em’s dictum, “We aren’t going to live forever, and you must learn to manage in the real world.” Better flying monkeys than Topeka, one supposes. Up in Oz (or down, or sideways; the directions to the place are provisional, depending on which path the twister takes), the lines of genealogy and elective affinity alike are beginning to tauten as it’s revealed just whose blood the Emperor shares. Some of his kin, however, are hanging out with Glinda and her kind. Even after fate has made done with the unpleasant witchy-poos of east and west, things aren’t all skittles and beer up in the Emerald City.

Indeed, as one short fellow remarks, “The Munchkinlanders discovered that liberation from sniffy Nessarose didn’t provoke them into wanting a return to domination by the EC. Can you blame them?” Can you indeed? While the Lollipop Guild is busy transforming itself into a cadre of freedom fighters, the rest of the Emerald City girds up for war within and war without, for |

there’s nothing that the Emperor likes more than a good dustup. All is chaos, swerve and swirl: the once cowardly lion now has moments where he sounds like Sean Connery, people fire up cigarettes and mount grim battles of resistance and Maguire pays subtle homage to Tolkien and Rowling and even Frank Baum while having a grand old time in the fantastically complicated world he has crafted.

Is a neat ending possible? Not likely. There’s even room in this deliciously fun novel for a trap-door sequel. Stay tuned.

PURGATORY

Martínez, Tomás Eloy Translated by Wynne, Frank Bloomsbury (288 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-60819-711-8 For his last novel, the Argentinian writer (1934–2010) constructed a maze, at the heart of which is a woman who refuses to give her husband up for dead.

An Argentinian woman, dismissing eyewitness accounts of her husband’s execution by the military dictatorship, embarks on a 30-year search for him and is rewarded by his reappearance. Emilia Dupuy and Simón Cardoso, both cartography students, meet in Buenos Aires. They are instant soul mates, marrying in 1976, soon after the military coup. Emilia’s father is the publisher of a political magazine and the coup’s most able propagandist. The new president dines at the Dupuy mansion. Simón criticizes the use of torture. Dupuy is furious; his son-in-law must be punished. The young couple are sent to a remote town on a mapping assignment. Both are arrested. Emilia is released; Simón is never seen again. He has joined “the disappeared,” the regime’s notorious hallmark. Emilia sets off on a wild goose chase that takes her to Rio, Caracas and Mexico City, after having been viciously humiliated by Dupuy, a true monster, while caring for her senile mother; she eventually settles in a New Jersey town, working as a cartographer. Enter a new character, one of Emilia’s Jersey neighbors, a professor and novelist, evidently Martínez himself.

In a postmodern twist, she is the protagonist in his novel in progress. The author’s interest in her life story somehow sparks Simón’s return, providing a happy ending for the reunited lovers.

These events are embedded in a metaphysical density: mapping and disappearing are the novel’s two poles. The operatic quality of Argentinian life is given its full due, while the overreaching of the fascists receives a priceless putdown when Orson Welles meets Dupuy in Los Angeles. Ultimately, Martínez counteracts the black magic of the “disappearances” with his own novelist’s magic: the resurrection of one of the victims.

Justice of sorts is done in this absorbing finale of a distinguished career.

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TALES OF THE NEW WORLD

Murray, Sabina Black Cat/Grove (272 pp.)

Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-8021-7083-5 In 10 stories by Murray (Forgery, 2007, etc.), historical figures adventure into new worlds largely because they feel excluded in their old ones.

“Fish,” practically a novella, introduces and lays out the theme of outsider-turned-explorer in the story of Mary Kingsley. A meekly subservient Victorian daughter, she barely leaves her house until she is 29. Then using her health as an excuse, she travels to the Canary Islands. Soon she’s hiking into the African interior where no Brit has gone before. Murray focuses on Kingsley’s interior life, the fairies that bedevil her as she defies convention. The stories that follow seldom display the same emotional complexity, although “His Actual Mark” comes close: In old age Edward Jon Eyre tries to reconcile the disconnect between his 1840 trek across Australia alone with a young aborigine, to whom he owes his survival, and his controversial fame for suppressing rebellion among Jamaican blacks 25 years later. “Paradise” probes the identity of Jim Jones of Jonestown infamy, and by extension other monster leaders from Pol Pot to Idi Amin to Hitler. The monsters of “The Solace of Monsters” are both whales and the whalers who hunt and fear them. Buccaneer William Dampier sails around the world three times, sometimes with the British government’s blessing. Readers may wonder if the young Jesuit who becomes Dr. Murray and travels to the Far East is the author’s father, but the story “Periplus” feels more philosophic than personal. Elsewhere, a self-proclaimed Venetian scholar sailing with Magellan chronicles the explorer’s wrongheaded choices even as he falls in love with him. A seer helplessly foretells the destruction of the Aztecs by the Spanish invasion. “Balboa” is a pig farmer escaping debt. And finally while visiting “On Sakhalin” and taking a fake census of the penal colony, Chekhov represents the storywriter as explorer and outsider both.

Murray’s writing is chilly, but she is astute about the addictive nature of adventure and the unnerving relationship between the explorer and those he explores/hunts.

(Agent: Esmond Harmsworth)

PARALLEL STORIES

Nádas, Péter Translated by Goldstein, Imre Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1,152 pp.) $40.00 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-374-22976-4 A robust epic of a Mitteleuropa lurching out of totalitarianism into whatever passes for modern society—”not a terrain without perils,” as one of the principal characters grimly observes.

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Hungarian novelist Nádas’ stories are parallel in just the sense that Plutarch’s lives are: They draw the reader to a moralizing conclusion. Otherwise, they are parallel only for short distances, like a train line out on the Magyar Plain, leading, as many of the characters here know, to horrible places of mass death. Nádas’ long tale opens with a scene befitting Stieg Larsson (though not indebted to it in any way: Nádas has been working on this book, it’s said, since before Larsson started writing fiction): As the Berlin Wall begins to crumble, a body, half-buried in snow, “half dangling off a bench,” is found in that city. The young man who found it lacks a sufficiently compelling alibi, while the police detective investigating the scene, a scholarly man with a doctorate and a classically derived sense of stoicism and gloom, suspects the worst of everyone. Who is this dead man, whose body bears “an odor that he had received during his last hours from another body”? From whose body does that sweet odor come?

The detective theorizes that fetishism is involved—and indeed, Nádas’ book is as sexually fraught as anything by Kundera— while the suspect rabbits off to the countryside, opening a tale that involves dozens of characters: Jews, Gypsies, Communists, anticommunists, a Chaucerian parade of humankind, arrayed across what used to be called Central Europe. War is a constant as friends drift apart and come back together over the decades; sometimes the characters have names and addresses, other times they are nearly anonymous figures swept up in events, such as one Gypsy prisoner of war called “the man with the glasses.” Each character’s life overlaps with another’s, not always neatly. Nádas is forgiving of their many frailties (“Ilonka Weisz wasn’t hard, just a common little girl with a big mouth”), but in the end, under the rumble of artillery fire and the crush of history, all that is left of their lives—and ours—is “the ethereal shadows of poplars.”

A pensive, beautifully written tour de force of modern European literature, worthy of shelving alongside Döblin, Pasternak and Mann.

THE ODDS

O’Nan, Stewart Viking (192 pp.) $25.95 | Jan. 23, 2012 978-0-670-02316-5 An emotional richness permeates this short novel about a couple on the verge of ending their marriage while pondering whether they can salvage it.

In recent years, O’Nan (Emily, Alone, 2011, etc.) has emerged as an accomplished chronicler of the bittersweet mundane, the everyday stories of characters who are no better or worse than their readers, but simply human, suffering through lost jobs, disintegrating families, dashed dreams, while showing a resilience in the appreciation of whatever blessings their lives afford them. Marking their 30th wedding anniversary, Art and Marion prepare for their impending divorce by taking one last trip together, a re-creation of their honeymoon at Niagara Falls. It’s a splurge they can no longer afford, as they’ve both lost their jobs and they’re about to lose their house, but Art hopes

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that going for broke at the casino with what little they have saved can reverse their fortunes. And though they’ve both had affairs that neither have been able to forget and at least one has found it hard to forgive, they still love each other. Or are comfortable with each other. Or at least used to each other. She recognizes that she has “succumbed to the inertia of middle age” while he worries that “without Marion he wouldn’t know what to do or even who he was.” So they spend their weekend drinking and gambling, grumbling about the tourist attractions, attending a Heart concert with a bunch of other middle-aged fans (a hilarious set piece), stumbling toward making love, complaining about uncomfortable shoes and going to the bathroom (a lot, for such a compact narrative). Each chapter title gives the odds on something to do with the novel (“Odds of a married couple making love on a given night: 1 in 5,” “Odds of Heart playing ‘Crazy on You’ in concert: 1 in 1”). Given the novel’s subtitle, A Love Story, the odds of it not ending tragically are pretty good.

A Valentine to marriage as it is actually lived in troubled times.

JULIA’S CHILD

Pinneo, Sarah Plume (288 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Jan. 31, 2012 978-0-452-29731-9

Entrepreneur mom struggles to balance the demands of her growing business with the needs of her young family.

Making healthy frozen organic food for finicky toddlers, Julia’s Child fills a niche that its founder, Julia Bailey, truly believes should be filled. A nutrition-obsessed former WallStreeter with two little boys, she runs her tiny operation out of a shared kitchen in Brooklyn with one full-time employee, and a slightly sketchy storage arrangement with a Mr. Pastucci and his Sons of Sicily Social Club. She also owns a small organic “farm” in Vermont where she hopes to source her own ingredients—someday. Counting on the support of her laid-back husband Luke, and their sweet-natured Scottish nanny, Bonnie, she is able to make her life work, barely. That all changes after an appearance on a morning talk show gives Julia and her signature savory baked “muffets” all the visibility they can handle. Soon after, Whole Foods comes-a-calling with a trial offer, forcing Julia and her devoted assistant Marta (a single mother fresh off welfare) into a punishing schedule. Add to that a make-or-break trade show, a website to be built on the fly and a nasty neighbor mom who wants to ban Julia’s kids from their apartment building’s playroom, and it is clear something has to give. Enter GPG, a global food conglomerate interested in purchasing Julia’s company. What they offer seems too good to be true. So is it?

And what will she have to give up in return? Peppered with real recipes and the kind of convincing details expected from a food writer, Pinneo’s debut novel uses a pleasantly frenetic pace to move along a fairly vanilla story line.

Foodie take on I Don’t Know How She Does It. |

THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD

Rankin, Ian Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown (384 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 21, 2011 978-0-316-03977-2 A routine, if unpleasant, internal investigation of the Fife Constabulary leads Edinburgh’s Inspector Malcolm Fox and his Professional Standards team (The Complaints, 2011, etc.) back to a 25-year-old cover-up.

If his own uncle, retired police officer Alan Carter, is to be believed, Detective Constable Paul Carter is certainly guilty of criminal misconduct for threatening Teresa Collins and two other women with harassment unless they met with him one-on-one in the back seat of his cruiser. So Malcolm Fox, together with Sgt. Tony Kaye and Constable Joe Naysmith, are sent down from the Lothian and Borders Police to make inquires. Their investigation is one disaster after another. Carter’s colleagues in Kircaldy alternately avoid the questioners and stonewall them. Teresa Collins greets their news that Paul Carter has been released from jail by hysterically accusing his investigators of intimidating her. Soon after Fox talks with him, Alan Carter is found shot to death by a gun that was supposed to have been destroyed many years ago.

His apparent suicide is followed by the drowning of the nephew he accused. As the case against the late Paul Carter goes up in flames and his own credibility plummets, Fox must also mend fences with his sister Jude over the care of their ailing father Mitch, who’s clearly entering his endgame. But a 1985 newspaper he spotted in Alan Carter’s home during their one and only meeting points him in the direction of Francis Vernal, a lawyer linked to the Scottish National Liberation Army before he was found shot to death in his wrecked car a generation ago.

Rankin deftly balances welcome surprises and satisfyingly predictable developments. Mainly, though, he succeeds in making methodical Fox a worthy successor to the legendary Inspector John Rebus.

SCARECROW RETURNS

Reilly, Matthew Simon & Schuster (368 pp.) $25.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-4165-7759-1

Scarecrow is back.

The Army of Thieves presents itself as an anarchist group made up of onceimprisoned Pinochet regime torturers supplemented by assorted African mercenaries, rebels and terrorists. Leading the diabolical cadre is the acid-scarred Lord of Anarchy. On the island, the Thieves control a colossal thermobaric bomb capable of setting the atmosphere of the northern hemisphere aflame.

Reilly (Hell Island, 2006, etc.) launches his hero, USMC Captain Shane Schofield, call-sign “Scarecrow,” against the Army of

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Thieves. Scarecrow, recuperating from a bloody mission which roused the ire of the French so much that they put a bounty on his head, had been assigned to a cold-weather weapons-testing mission at an encampment near Dragon Island. With a narrative line suitable for the latest XBox 360 got-to-have-it gamer edition, Reilly delivers nonstop action to propel Scarecrow and his team on and off the island. Characters come, play a part big or small and get shot or blown up, and sometimes come back to life, and it’s all equal opportunity mayhem. There’s a modicum of backstory, and the text is interspersed with maps and line drawings of weapons and facilities, but the escapades are exaggerated Moonraker-fantastical, with more gadget magic and without Fleming’s Bond-character nuances. Think testosterone-bulked automatic weapons, stolen Ospreys, mini-subs and a machine-gun-toting robot named Bertie.

Action comic overkill. (Agent: Suzanne Gluck)

THE ART OF HEARING HEARTBEATS

Sendker, Jan-Philipp Translated by Wiliarty, Kevin Other Press (336 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Jan. 31, 2012 978-1-59051-463-4 German journalist Sendker’s first novel, originally published in German in 2002, is a love story set in Burma and imbued with Eastern spirituality and fairy-tale romanticism.

Tin Win, a successful Wall Street lawyer originally from Burma, has been missing since his passport was discovered near the Bangkok airport four years ago. After finding an unmailed love letter he wrote to a Burmese woman named Mi Mi, his daughter Julia, also a Manhattan lawyer, goes in search of her father who never told his American Catholic wife or their two children anything about his life before America. In a teahouse in Kalaw, a small town in Burma—the opening pages are a lovely rendering of her sensory overload—Julia encounters a mysterious older man named U Ba who says he has been waiting for her. He also claims to know Tin Win and asks her one question, “Do you believe in love?” Although the novel is ostensibly being narrated by Julia, her encounter with U Ba is really a framing device for him to tell Tin Win’s romantic story: After his father dies and his mother deserts him on his sixth birthday, Tin Win is raised lovingly by his widowed aunt Su Kyi, but by ten years old he has gone blind. Su Kyi takes him to the monastery where the saintly abbot teaches him to follow the wisdom of the heart. At 14 he encounters Mi Mi when, with a newly discovered magical skill to hear and interpret heartbeats, he hears her heart beating. He falls in love immediately. Mi Mi was born with mangled feet and cannot walk but is lovely and has a magical gift for healing song. Their love has a purity of trust and oneness that cannot be destroyed. How Tin Win regains his sight and ends up in America is less important than the love he and Mi Mi maintain in mutual silence for 50 years.

Fans of Nicholas Sparks and/or Elizabeth Gilbert should eat this up.

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THE LITTLE RUSSIAN

Sherman, Susan Counterpoint (384 pp.) $25.00 | Jan. 1, 2012 978-1-58243-772-9

Sherman’s stark debut tracks a fortune-tossed couple whose quarter-century odyssey encapsulates the plight of Russia’s Jews.

The novel opens with a gut-churning description of an 1897 pogrom in Little Russia (modern-day Ukraine). The 14-year-old boy who numbly watches a peasant beat his father to death, we learn, is Hershel Alshonsky. Seven years later, he catches the eye of Berta Lorkis, a restless grocer’s daughter who thinks Hershel will give her back the comfortable life she enjoyed as companion to a wealthy Moscow family. Berta doesn’t know that Hershel’s travels as a wheat merchant disguise his activities smuggling guns for the Bund, which aims to arm Jews against pogroms. They have nine happily married years before a gun raid gone wrong sends Hershel fleeing to America in early 1914. Berta refuses to join him, thinking she and her two children can remain secure in the affluence Hershel’s trade created; by the time she realizes her mistake, World War I has begun, and they are trapped. Scrambling to support her son and daughter, proud, cultivated Berta is reduced to a “house Jew” who digs up hard-to-find luxury goods and sells them to gentiles who admit her only at their back doors. The Bolshevik Revolution and ensuing civil war only make matters worse for Russian Jews, persecuted by all sides. Berta manages to scrape by and learns in 1919 that Hershel has sent for her. If she can only get to the American Embassy in Warsaw, she can save herself and the one child she has left. Sherman paints a refreshingly unsentimental portrait of a woman beset and a nation in the throes of revolutionary change yet still bound by ancient prejudices—so unsentimental, in fact, that it’s hard to care much about vain, self-centered Berta even after she is transformed into a tough, resourceful survivor.

Well-written and researched, but emotionally unengaging and probably not to the taste of those who like their historical fiction more reassuring.

THE EVENING HOUR

Sickels, A. Carter Bloomsbury (336 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Jan. 1, 2012 978-1-60819-597-8 A plainspoken novel, but one with intensely lyrical moments, about the devastation of the West Virginia landscape—and the devastation to the local communities— owing to mountaintop removal.

Cole Freeman is making it, but just barely. He works as an aide in a nursing home but supplements his meager income with the more lucrative trade of selling

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prescription drugs he either steals or buys off of the local elderly population. (In the small hollers of rural West Virginia, there’s plenty of demand for escape.) Cole is to some extent a victim of his grandfather’s Pentecostal religion, for this patriarch divides humanity into two types: the saved and the damned. Cole’s mother, Ruby, was consigned to the latter category, as her father labeled her a slut for her unredeemable “whorish” ways. For 17 years she was absent from Cole’s life but returns when Cole is 27.

Cole has had an off-again/on-again relationship with the wild and tattooed Charlotte, but he’s more interested in Lacy, a waitress at the Wigwam restaurant who lives an upright life and is morally committed to fight the depredations of the Heritage Coal Company, whose construction of a sludge dam threatens several of the communities along the creeks and streams. Cole’s life is further complicated by the reappearance of Terry Rose, a childhood friend with whom he used to get drunk and stoned.

Terry’s idea of entrepreneurship is to cook meth, but this activity gets him both in trouble and in debt. Cole would like to change his life—to get out of the drug business, get a nursing degree and perhaps settle down with Lacy—but he feels tied down by circumstances that resist transformation.

Sickels has great insight into the emotional life of West Virginians, and he refreshingly presents them as fully realized characters rather than as clichés or stereotypes.

PORTRAIT OF A SPY

Silva, Daniel Harper/HarperCollins (464 pp.) $26.99 | Jul. 19, 2011 978-0-06-207218-4 Gabriel Allon can scrape away at all that obscures to uncover reality, whether the shadows are blemishes on a Titian masterpiece or the secrets of a maniacal terrorist.

Allon retired from a covert unit of Israel’s intelligence service, the Office. He now restores art, a benign profession he practices in England. Accompanied by his wife, Chiara, also an Office veteran, Allon is visiting London to examine a painting in need of his expert touch. On a busy street, the ever-alert Allon notices a man acting suspiciously and attempts to intervene. But the police see Allon draw a weapon and tackle him instead of the terrorist bomber.

The deadly explosion is one in a series orchestrated by Rashid al-Husseini, a brilliant propagandist, and Malik al-Zubair, a bloody radical who learned to kill in Iraq. Allon is soon drafted into an effort to neutralize al-Husseini by his former compatriots at the Office. The Israelis are cooperating with the CIA, the agency duped by al-Husseini—think Anwar al-Awlaki— before he slipped into the jihadist movement. Silva’s (The Rembrandt Affair, 2010, etc.) narrative is linear, moving from London to Paris to Washington and into the deserts of the Middle East. The most affecting character is Nadia al-Baraki, wealthy daughter of Abdul Aziz al-Baraki, an ally of the House of Saud, and a financier who funneled money to the jihadists. |

Nadia loved her father deeply, not realizing he supported Wahhabi fundamentalism, the sort of religious extremism that resulted in her closest childhood friend being victim of an “honor killing.” Nadia learns that Allon is the agent who assassinated her father, but she decides to enter into the complicated plot to kill Malik al-Zubair and to destroy al-Husseini’s movement. Other characters verge on cliché, although they are fittingly intriguing for the genre. Gadgets, back-stabbing machinations and political duplicities lend an aura of realism to the intricate plot.

Covert action more le Carré than Ludlum.

THE WORLD WE FOUND

Umrigar, Thrity Harper/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $25.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-06-193834-4

A crisis reconnects four young firebrands from college who have grown apart as adults, in a story dense with sensitive scrutiny.

Straddling India and the United States, this tale of friends reunited in disparate maturity is heavy on internal reflection, lighter on events. The highpoint of Armaiti, Nishta, Laleh and Kavita’s student years in late-1970s’ Bombay was their involvement in political activity, in particular a demonstration that saw two of them arrested. Now, three decades later, Nishta, renamed Zoha, has spent years in an oppressive marriage to Iqbal, a Muslim who has grown very devout. Impulsive Laleh is comfortably settled with her influential husband Adish and children; architect Kavita has finally come to terms with her lesbianism; and, in America, Armaiti has just been diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor, a catastrophe that pulls the four together again at Armaiti’s request. Laleh and Kavita are free to leave India immediately but Nishta has to be found, persuaded and then assisted to escape. Umrigar (The Weight of Heaven, 2009, etc.) enhances her simple scenario via sympathetic analysis of all perspectives including Iqbal’s and Adish’s, whose final confrontation at the airport reflects some of the prejudices and practices of modern India.

Umrigar extends a boundless, occasionally lyrical sympathy to her cast, but her slender plot, even padded with extensive rumination, still disappoints. (Author appearances in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle)

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KBL Kill Bin Laden

Weisman, John Morrow/HarperCollins (288 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 15, 2011 978-0-06-211951-3 In a fictional version of the recent true-life event, SEAL Team Six rises to the occasion and terminates the world’s most famous terrorist.

As the ghostwriter for Richard Marcinko, the founder and first Commanding Officer of the nowfamous SEAL Team Six, Weisman (Direct Action, 2005, etc.) is uniquely qualified to fictionalize the May 2011 actions that killed Osama bin Laden. However, this choppy, propulsive invention suffers from the fact that the real events and operators may prove more intriguing, should the veil of secrecy ever be lifted on Operation Neptune Spear. But the armchair warriors who dig Tom Clancy and his ilk will find plenty of technobabble here. One of the book’s major advantages is that Weisman looks at the operation from disparate viewpoints, represented by major characters. Intelligence on the ground comes from Charlie Becker, a retired Ranger who has since gone native as an in-country spook in Pakistan. “God, Charlie understood, is indeed great,” Weisman writes. “But so, Charlie knew, is a Barnes 70-grain TSX bullet. Or a Match King 77-grain. If Bin Laden wanted to recite kalimah shahada on his way to martyrdom, either one would help him along the path equally as well.” Politics are covered by Anthony Mercaldi, the Director of the CIA. It’s Mercaldi’s character who puts readers in the room with the president of the United States (unnamed, which throws the story off a bit as the CIA and the president square off about the political ramifications). The most appealing characters are the guys doing the dirty work, notably Boatswain’s Mate Second Class Troy Roberts, a Godfearing 24-year-old with a seven-figure training tab and a death toll in double digits. The novel is much better than the typical military fare, but like the inevitable movie, it’s also not as strange or impressive as the truth.

A down-and-dirty thriller that feels as rushed as its publication date.

MISS DIMPLE RALLIES TO THE CAUSE

Ballard, Mignon F. Minotaur Books (272 pp.) $24.99 | Dec. 6, 2011 978-0-312-61475-1

The battle to win World War II is fought on many fronts, including Elderberry, Ga. Librarian Virginia Balliew is nervous about chairing the big War Bond Rally scheduled for September 1943. Although bossy Emmaline Brumlow has foisted her nephew Buddy Oglesby on Virginia as a helper, Virginia’s more comfortable with the help of her old friend Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, a beloved first-grade teacher with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Elderberry. The peaceful town is rocked when some children helping to pick cotton discover a skeleton, later identified as Cynthia Murphy, whose long-suffering husband had ignored her romantic dalliances. Her murder is not the only problem Miss Dimple has on her plate. She’s long lived in a rooming house run by her friend Phoebe Chadwick, who’s obviously in great distress over something she refuses to talk about; a backstage helper is shot and wounded at the Bond Rally; and someone has taken off with half the money—possibly Buddy, who’s also a suspect in the murder. Nor can Miss Dimple count on the young protégées who’ve helped her before (Miss Dimple Disappears, 2010, etc.), since both are immersed in wartime romances. Even so, she’ll have lots of assistance, sought and unsought, in her efforts to solve all the puzzles plaguing her beloved town.

Ballard’s nostalgic look at small-time life during the war provides plenty of down-home coziness along with a credible mystery.

BONES UNDER THE BEACH HUT

Brett, Simon Five Star (272 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 16, 2011 978-1-4328-2568-3

The Fethering gals uncover a corpse in a cabana.

Carole Seddon’s plans to amuse her granddaughter at the beach go awry when the cabana she rents in that posh resort Smalting seems to have a problem with its floorboards. Moved to another cabana, she barely has time to introduce herself to the neighbors when human remains are found under her original sublet. Naturally, she rings up her pal 1978

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Jude. While sipping Chilean Chardonnay, the girls identify a plethora of murder suspects, including a young lady whose boyfriend is missing; another young lady toiling away at a novel; a security guard, lax in his duties, who has an odd arrangement with a pedophilic member of the District Council; the officious president of the Smalting Beach Hut Association; and an elderly couple who know more than they’ll admit to. A few more sips of Chardonnay, and Carole and Jude will discover who those human remains belonged to while a bereft relative walks into the sea, and keeps walking, in remorse.

Not the sturdiest or wittiest of the Fethering series (Blood at the Bookies, 2008, etc.), but fans, perhaps fortified by swigs of Chilean Chardonnay, probably won’t mind.

GETTING LUCKY

Brod, DC Tyrus Books (304 pp.) $24.95 | paper $15.95 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-4405-3198-9 978-1-4405-3195-8 paperback A scoop becomes an obituary.

Clair Powell, a reporter for the Fowler News and Record, had been working on a story about Cedar Ridge, the newest development in green housing, when she took her dog out for a midnight walk and was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Forensics indicate that the car swerved into her. Accident or murder? Hiring on to finish Clair’s interviews, freelancer Robyn Guthrie finds herself smack in the middle of a criminal investigation when many of the people involved with the Cedar Ridge project suddenly die or disappear. Joe Kendrick, whose wife Kat was Robyn’s nemesis in high school, dies in a prostitute’s arms. Glenn Patchen spends two days dodging Robyn’s request for an interview. And Carl Wellen, a soil engineer, vanishes. Meantime, Vrana, a former EPA agent now working as a private investigator, starts tailing Robyn, perhaps at the instigation of mobster Ed Leoni. Had Clair uncovered something so unsavory about Cedar Ridge that she had to be silenced? Only three units have been sold and only one family has moved in to date, but are they safe? Records indicate that before environmental laws kicked in, mob-run concerns were dumping toxic runoffs on the land now occupied by Cedar Ridge. Using stealth and the acting chops of Vrana and her boyfriend Mick, Robyn engineers a major sting that will recompense the new homeowners and swindle the mob.

A plucky heroine (Getting Sassy, 2010, etc.), her carping momma and her possibly permanent boyfriend, if they can resolve the kids/no kids issue, are more compelling than the environmental brouhaha. But that sting maneuver is top-drawer.

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THE VILLA OF DEATH

Challis, Joanna Minotaur Books (304 pp.) $25.99 | Dec. 6, 2011 978-0-312-36717-6

Obsession with an ancient manor house may be the motive for murder.

Budding author Daphne du Maurier is leaving London for a trip to her beloved Cornwall to see her friend Ellen Hamilton finally marry Teddy Grimshaw, the father of their child, at her home, Thornleigh Manor. Torn apart by the Great War before they could marry, the couple is now reunited, and Teddy has pledged to return Ellen’s moldering mansion to its former glory. When Teddy is found murdered on the day of the wedding, Ellen is accused by Teddy’s ex-wife and her daughter. The will leaving most of his large estate to Ellen only brings out the worst in Teddy’s grasping family. Daphne, who’s in love with Major Browning, the officer whose mysterious connection to Scotland Yard was revealed in their last adventure (Peril at Somner House, 2010, etc.), is crushed when she hears of his engagement to the Earl of Rutland’s daughter. Browning assures Daphne that the engagement is a sham; he’s investigating not only Teddy’s murder but also some shady business practices. Indeed there’s much to keep him busy, like the death of Teddy’s ex. With so much money and such high emotions at stake, there’s no lack of suspects. It’s up to Daphne and Browning to winnow the clues and solve the crimes.

Challis’ underwhelming mysteries, loosely based on the novelist’s life, put Daphne du Maurier in situations that will later turn up in her novels. In this case, think Manderley.

A CORPSE’S NIGHTMARE

DePoy, Phillip Minotaur Books (320 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-312-69946-8

Folklorist Fever Devilin solves his own murder.

On the night of Dec. 3, Fever went to bed and didn’t wake up. When a stranger entered his room and shot him twice, he died, only to be brought back to life—if you call being in a coma for three months a life—by the quick actions of his love Lucinda, a nurse. But there are distinct drawbacks to his recuperation. He falls asleep mid-sentence. He wobbles rather than walks. And he drifts in and out of lucidity, confusing dreams with reality and hearing whispers from his long-dead mother, who wants him to focus on the tin box behind the living-room clock. It’s gone, of course, along with the clippings and pictures it held. But was it ever real or just the product of his frayed synapses? The search will lead Fever and his friend, Professor Winton Andrews, to T-Bone Morton, the long-lost son of jazz great Jelly Roll Morton, who fled to Paris from Southern

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1979

“A dedicated member of the Knights Templar is caught up in a mystery he feels obliged to solve.” from the templar magician

racism, fathered a child, moved to Chicago, then gave up that child to a family from Blue Mountain to save her life. Now, years later, that girl’s existence has made Fever the target of the Sons of Wingfield, a group of bigoted bubbas. Another tin box will come into play with an assist from someone who may be the Earl of Huntingdon. Or an undercover Fed. Or an angel. Fever will nearly get murdered again before he fully understands his personal genealogy and his mental haze clears away.

Nobody writes Southern better than DePoy (The Drifter’s Wheel, 2008, etc.), and short of medical school, you won’t find a better description of the aftereffects of coma anywhere.

THE TEMPLAR MAGICIAN

Doherty, P.C. Minotaur Books (320 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-312-67502-8

A dedicated member of the Knights Templar is caught up in a mystery he feels obliged to solve.

When Edmund de Payens, the greatnephew of the Templars’ founder, and his fellow knight, Englishman Philip Mayele, are given the job of protecting Count Raymond, they fail miserably. The Count is murdered before their eyes in the streets of Tripoli, and a horrendous bloodbath ensues. After they’re punished by the Grand Master, Bertrand Tremelai, the two knights, together with the mysterious Thierry Parmenio, are sent on a mission to visit the leader of the Assassins in a remote, stunningly beautiful fortress high in the hills of Outremer (modern-day Palestine). Although the group is traveling under safe conduct, Edmund learns that there is a blood feud with his host, who nevertheless provides him with warnings and a coded message he is unable to decipher. Upon their return, the three are almost killed in a fierce battle to take a nearly impregnable fortress. Escaping with their lives, they’re sent to accompany Richard Berrington and his beautiful sister to England, now locked in civil war between rival claimants to the throne, and ordered to warn King Stephen of danger and find the Englishman known as Walkyn, a dangerous killer rumored to have magical powers.

Once in England, Edmund, finding death and treason on every street, realizes that he must use every skill he possesses to stay alive and protect the Order of Templars.

In a departure from his 14th-century series (Nightshade, 2011, etc.), Doherty offers up a neatly turned puzzle set in 1152, a period of blood-soaked terror in both England and Palestine.

1980

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A KILLER’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES

Duncan, Elizabeth J. Minotaur Books (288 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 8, 2011 978-0-312-62283-1

Murder threatens to spoil the Christmas celebrations in a quiet Welsh town.

Canadian ex-pat Penny Brannigan and her partner Victoria are scrambling to finish up the last-minute chores they need to complete before opening their new spa when a new complication arises. One of Penny’s customers, wealthy widow Evelyn Lloyd, has recently met Harry Saunders, a charming but evasive American who quickly gains her trust. Despite remonstrations from her housemate Florence and her banker, she opens a joint account with £20,000 of her money, only to see Harry vanish. Practically the whole town seems to be visiting Conwy Castle when Harry is found dead with Evelyn’s letter opener in his back. Penny has had success in the past solving murders (A Brush with Death, 2010, etc.), and her boyfriend, Chief Inspector Gareth Davies, is always willing to listen to her ideas. So it’s no surprise that when Evelyn begs her to investigate, Penny agrees. Soon she’s also investigating the theft of several small objects, the most valuable of which is a brooch Gareth gave her for Christmas. Once Penny comes to believe that the murder and the thefts are related, her sleuthing puts her in danger from a reckless killer.

Duncan’s latest English cozy continues to flesh out her recurring characters while providing more sound mystery-mongering.

SHIFTING SANDS

Fraser, Anthea Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-07278-8057-4

Whose grief is more intense, the widow’s or her adult children’s?

Anna Farrell’s husband died while playing a round of golf last year. To cheer her up, her children Jonathan, a journalist, and Sophie, a designer, and their spouses send her off on a South African holiday, where she meets and beds another tourist, Lewis Masters, the divorced owner of a chain of upmarket spas. Anna is loath to admit her indiscretion to the kids, but Sophie arrives for some coddling after she spies her hubby canoodling with her best friend, and the secret is soon out.

Jonathan is startled to learn that his mum’s lover is under police investigation for the stabbing murder of an employee who had contacted Jonathan about spa treatments that she claimed had caused five deaths. But when Jonathan goes to a hotel to meet her, she’s lying dead in the tub, her safe is open and the files stored on a memory drive are missing. Marriages past and present come under scrutiny—Jonathan and his wife are only recently reconciled, while

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Sophie is naturally on the outs with her husband—and almost nobody, not even Anna, is best pleased about her quickie entanglement. The police plod along, and at length, on the 30th anniversary of the spas’ opening. The murderer is revealed with Lewis’s son, exwife, staff and celebratory guests in attendance.

The romances, which are more interesting than the murder, make for a modestly involving read characteristic of Fraser’s output (Unfinished Portrait, 2010, etc.).

FREEZING

Koff, Clea Severn House (240 pp.) $28.95 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-7278-8096-3 A macabre car accident kicks off a forensic investigation that leads from the West Coast to the East and beyond.

No matter how drunk you are, nothing sobers you up like the sight of body parts falling out of the van you just hit.

When forensic anthropologists Jayne Hall and Steelie Lander, missing-persons profilers and partners in Agency 32/1, are called to the scene by Scott Houston, the old friend who’s recently been moved from Atlanta to the Los Angeles FBI, they make an even more gruesome discovery.

The body parts in question not only belong to several different women, but they’re just thawing; the van driver, whoever it was, must have been keeping them in a freezer. With that, the search is on for a coast-to-coast murderer who may just be the same man Houston failed to catch in Atlanta, a practiced killer of prostitutes. Soon enough Houston and his partner Eric Ramos find the van in nearby Maricopa County, but not, courtesy of a whopping coincidence, the killer they’re seeking. It looks as if all roads may lead to Atlanta after all—unless they lead back even further, to the wake of the Rwanda genocide a decade ago.

Forensic anthropologist and memoirist Koff (The Bone Woman, 2005) isn’t much of a stylist, but if you thrill when you hear that “this is where Steelie does the odontograms and the biometrics and we digitize relevant photos,” the promised series may be your meat.

EASY MONEY

Lapidus, Jens Translated by von Arbin Ahlander, Astri Pantheon (480 pp.) $26.95 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-307-37748-7 Three small-timers claw their way to the top of Stockholm’s vast cocaine empire, with predictably mixed results.

Chilean drug dealer Jorge Salinas Barrio sees no reason why he should serve out his jail time. Mrado Slovovic, the Yugoslavian chief of the |

city’s coat-check protection racket, is hungry for bigger things.

Johan Westlund, an impoverished party boy, is plucked from obscurity by Abdulkarim Haij, who thinks he can sell drugs to his better-heeled friends. Once Jorge breaks out of prison, the places he and the other two ill-assorted heroes assume in crime boss Radovan Kranjic’s establishment change their dreams into ceaseless scheming. Since extortion, prostitution, drug smuggling and money laundering are something of a zero-sum game, each player can reach the top only by bringing down someone else. And even before Jorge, Mrado and JW become aware of each others’ existence, that’s exactly what they attempt. There are complications, of course. Mrado keeps fighting his ex-wife’s attempts to deny his joint custody of their daughter. The higher JW rises in the hierarchy, the more intently he searches for clues to the disappearance of his sister Camilla four years ago.

Jorge, saved from death by JW’s offhanded intervention, swears eternal loyalty to him, even though eternal loyalty is unlikely to be rewarded. The rat-a-tat-tat rhythms of Lapidus’ prose, in Ahlander’s translation, aren’t for everyone. Yet the first-time novelist, an attorney who’s defended some of the most notorious figures in Sweden’s underworld, creates a magnetically rich, murky man’s world in which women are mostly chattel, the police remain mostly offstage and nothing is ever personal, just business. Inevitably, however, it’s their personal ties and quests that most endanger Jorge, Mrado and JW. The closest models for this sprawling, ambitious debut are gangster movies from Scarface to Mesrine. (Author tour to Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C.)

THREE DAY TOWN

Maron, Margaret Grand Central Publishing (288 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 21, 2011 978-0-446-55578-4 When Series Collide: Judge Deborah Knott meets NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald.

Having delayed their honeymoon for over a year, Deborah Knott and her husband, Colleton County Sheriff ’s Deputy Dwight Bryant (Christmas Mourning, 2010, etc.), finally head off to Manhattan, where they’ve been loaned an apartment on the Upper West Side.

One of Deborah’s distant kinfolk asks her to deliver a small, hefty package to homicide cop Sigrid Harald’s mom. But when Sigrid comes to claim it, a beach-party-in-January is raging in the co-op next door, guests are roaming the halls and the package has gone missing, along with some valuable antique boxes.

Oddly, a papier maché Mexican cat has been left in their place.

More oddly and much worse, the building super is lying dead on the minuscule balcony. Dwight begins making a list of the partygoers while Sigrid calls on reinforcements from the precinct and Deborah tactfully labors to explain what was in the box from the South. The pace picks up when an art curator whom blizzard conditions have stranded in the extra bedroom in Deborah and Dwight’s borrowed apartment recognizes the

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1981

“Strange mythological creatures are terrorizing Philadelphia.” from petrified

contents as one of sculptor Al Streichert’s valuable maquettes, an erotic, racist preliminary model for a major piece of work.

One of the building’s elevator operators runs off. The son of the co-op board’s chairman disappears. Questioning discloses that there’s a kleptomaniac in the building; a couple about to be evicted; and security problems with some of the locks. Like many a nosy heroine before her, Deborah lands in the villain’s clutches, almost adding to the death total.

Dwight’s obsession with New York gourmet delights and Deborah’s passion for stylish, impractical footwear are charming, but Sigrid’s slow but steady police work carries the day. Fans who have hankered for Deborah and Sigrid to find themselves in the same story will be charmed.

PETRIFIED

Masterton, Graham Severn House (240 pp.) $28.95 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-0-7278-8072-7 Strange mythological creatures are terrorizing Philadelphia.

Crypto-zoologist Nathan Underhill has been using ancient treatises in his attempt to re-create fabulous creatures whose cells may contain cures for many diseases. He and his lab team, Kavita and Aarif, have just succeeded in recreating a phoenix when the company supporting his research, a firm whose limited sense of adventure is exhausted, cuts them off.

When Nathan burns his hand, he uses the cell-therapy treatment to cure himself in order to demonstrate that the therapy works. All the while, Theodor Zauber, a mad scientist’s equally mad son, is pressing Nathan to help him sustain life in a huge collection of gargoyles that were turned to stone by 13th-century alchemists. Zauber’s father had found a method to restore these unfortunates to flesh and blood, but it only lasts a short time, and it poses other problems. For example, the creatures can prolong their lives only by eating the hearts of humans. Well aware of this wrinkle, Zauber threatens many more deaths unless Nathan helps him. Desperate to find the cache of gargoyles, Nathan must work with the police, who’ve been investigating several cases in which huge stone statues have killed people when they crashed to earth, in a last-ditch effort to protect humanity.

Morally conflicted Nathan’s second adventure (Basilisk, 2009, etc.) is a fast-paced, gruesome tale sure to bring chills to receptive spines.

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TAG MAN

Mayor, Archer Minotaur Books (320 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 4, 2011 978-0-312-68194-4 Joe Gunther (Red Herring, 2010, etc.) returns in the strange case of a burglar not so much.

In Brattleboro, Vt., the privileged classes are experiencing the downside of being upper. That’s because Tag Man has made it unavoidably clear where he sees his targets of opportunity. Tag Man is the slick, savvy operator who slips ghostlike past sophisticated security systems but never seems to steal anything of substance. He’s struck the houses of Brattleboro’s rich and famous half a dozen times now, pilfering esoterically—a wedge of chocolate cake here, a spread of caviar on crackers there—and leaving behind nary a clue.

Except, of course, his signature calling cards, sardonic “You’re it” Post-It notes that have made him the media’s favorite antihero and earned him his jokey nickname. But then, suddenly, the game takes a significantly darker turn. Someone, somehow, has promoted Tag Man from a figure of fun to a serious threat.

Someone, in fact, contemplates murder if certain hard-eyed individuals can locate Tag Man who, perceiving his difficulties, has quite sensibly gone on the lam. Which means that Joe Gunther and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation team find themselves in an anomalous position. They have to catch a thief, all right, but in order to protect him.

It’s hard to imagine a more likable thief than Mayor’s Tag Man—or, for that matter, a more companionable lawman than the time-and-trouble-tested Sage of Brattleboro.

THE COMPASSION OF FATHER DOWLING

McInerny, Ralph Five Star (352 pp.) $25.95 | Dec. 16, 2011 978-1-4328-2510-2

Sixteen short stories dating from 1992 to 2002, all save one previously published in Catholic Dossier.

McInerny, who passed away last year, had a wry touch with the foibles of the senior citizens who congregated at St. Hilary’s. Series regulars featured here include busybody Marie, the residence housekeeper, and her arch rival Edna, the gym-turned-elder-center volunteer; Amos, Fox River’s most successful attorney, and Tuttle, its most slapdash; competent police veterans Keegan and Horvath, and ne’er-do-well Peanuts Pianone. And, of course, there’s the steadying presence of Father Dowling himself, enjoying his pipe, his non-decaf coffee and his abiding morality. Among the problems arising in the collection are counterfeit $50 bills left in the collection plate, a key to riches

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“With careful attention to the nuances of character, Perry offers a tale worthy of mulling over by the fireplace.” from a christmas homecoming

embedded in a coffin’s satin lining, art theft and death by a scarf, by poison, by blunt instrument and by asphyxia caused by a whack by a car trunk. “The Fat Cat,” arguably the collection’s drollest story, revolves around a deceased feline, but perhaps the most troublesome antics at St. Hilary’s are caused by love, which causes geriatrics to act like teenagers, gossip to run amok and family members to cuddle up to weapons of their choice.

A genteel assembly, with a nod to Catholic mainstays like Bingo and approaching decrepitude, from an author who will be missed.

A NICE PLACE TO DIE

McLoughlin, Jane Severn House (208 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-7278-8060-4

Teenaged thugs terrorize a suburban housing development.

When Hester Warren cursed the villagers of Catcombe in Somersetshire for burning her as a witch, no one could foresee that the old woman’s oath would be realized in the form of a vast modern housing estate called Catcombe Mead. These neat brick detached homes have brought commuters who work in London and shop in the estate’s own shopping center, causing the village shops to wither until all that remains is a post office, a co-op and a junk shop open only in the summer. The residents of Old Catcombe hate what they call “the incomers.” Attempting to help heal the rift between the two Catcombes, Tim Baker, the village vicar, rides his bicycle into the Mead with a message of goodwill and gets stomped to death for his trouble. Kevin Miller’s mother Donna sees her son attack Baker. So does Alice Bates, hiding behind her curtains.

Retired pediatrician Peter Henson knows Kevin’s to blame, as do Terri and Helen, the lesbian couple across the street. Yet none of the Forester Close homeowners are willing to share what they know with DCI Rachel Moody or her sergeant Jack Reid for fear of reprisals from Kevin, his brother Nate, and his purple-haired sister Jess. Jess has reason enough to hate Kevin: He’s the father of her two-year-old daughter Kylie. But the Millers are a loyal bunch, and as they close ranks along with Helen’s daughter Nicky, they show why their cowering neighbors have every reason to fear their wrath.

McLoughlin (Shadow of a Doubt, 2011, etc.) seems to specialize in non-mysteries, with suspense arising from the overheated relationships among the principals.

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THE RONNIE GENE

Mills, Jon Five Star (258 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 16, 2011 978-1-4328-2516-4

Chicago attorney Mills’ first novel is a gently comic tale of financial malfeasance and murder untangled by the world’s most unlikely private eyes.

Ever since its founding, Jamos & Mosit, Inc., Private Investigators, hasn’t had a single case. You could blame it on the firm’s low-rent digs in a shady part of town, or its lack of professional contacts or its zero amenities (no secretary, no advertising, no letterhead, no telephone). But it really doesn’t matter, because the company was formed not to conduct any actual investigations but only to provide group-health insurance for its partners after the Jamos Company, which helped corporations conduct prize games, went bust. Since Stanley Jamos has Parkinson’s and Dave Mosit has Alzheimer’s, continuing medical coverage is vitally important to both of them. Just look at Pete Tilden, the third partner in the Jamos Company. He didn’t join them in their new venture, and now someone’s shot him to death, apparently during a burglary he interrupted. When Ronnie Dumat, Stanley’s old college flame, returns to the Windy City determined to hire Jamos & Mosit to dig up more information on the abortive acquisition that bankrupted their old firm, it’s obvious that something is fishy. What isn’t obvious is how many different ways the case will illustrate the wisdom shared by Chicago’s finest: If you’re going to be a private eye, don’t trust anyone, including the client.

A modest but appealing blend of legal intrigue, sitcom rhythms and sleuthing in spite of itself.

A CHRISTMAS HOMECOMING

Perry, Anne Ballantine (224 pp.) $18.00 | Oct. 25, 2011 978-0-345-52463-8 Christmastime in Victorian England.

What better setting for staging a vampire play and solving a murder mystery?

The ninth in Perry’s series of Christmas mysteries (A Christmas Odyssey, 2010, etc.), the book follows Caroline Fielding as she travels with her young husband, Joshua, and his acting troupe from London to Whitby. Hoping to secure Charles Netheridge’s patronage for the next season, Joshua has contracted to put on a Boxing Day performance of Dracula, adapted by Netheridge’s daughter, Alice. Charles hopes to rid his daughter of frivolous interests before she marries and settles down. However, Alice, engaged to the conservative and artistically unsupportive Douglas Paterson, yearns for independence.

The play is amateurish, but encouraged by Caroline, Joshua works closely with Alice to bring the gothic tale to life. Outside,

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a relentless snow storm isolates the cast and family, and underlying tensions begin to percolate. Douglas’ eye begins to wander towards one of the actors, the lovely Lydia. Vincent, playing Van Helsing, challenges Joshua at nearly every directorial turn.

Despite the storm, the mysterious Anton Ballin arrives, seeking shelter and proving to be an expert on not only vampires but also stagecraft. Just as the play falls into shape, Caroline stumbles over a dead body in the dark of night. Isolated by the storm, only one of them could be the murderer. But who?

With careful attention to the nuances of character, Perry offers a tale worthy of mulling over by the fireplace.

(Agent: Donald Maass)

THE STRANGE DEATH OF FATHER CANDY

Roberts, Les Minotaur Books (288 pp.) $24.99Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-312-56633-3

In 1985, a hardened Vietnam veteran who’s settled in Chicago returns to Youngstown, Ohio, where he grew up and his priest brother has just committed suicide.

“I can’t really say I have a passion for anything,” Dominick Candiotti tells a newspaper reporter. Wrong. He’s passionate enough about Diane Burnham, the old college flame now married to an attorney, to burn up the sheets with her again at the drop of a hat, and passionate enough about his brother Alfonso, a diffident Youngstown police lieutenant, and his sister Teresa, a do-nothing whiner, to quiz them mercilessly about the apparent suicide of their brother, Father Richard Candiotti. Mainly, though, he has a passion for justice. First he tries to find out the truth about the much-loved Father Candy’s death by making the rounds of the mourners at his funeral, with special attention to members of the Severino family, who run the rackets on the west side of town, and their rivals, the Mangione family, who owe their loyalty to the Pittsburgh mob. When his barrage of questions finally moves someone beyond annoyance and dire warnings to a Youngstown Tune-Up—a fatal car bombing—Nicky goes into vigilante mode. The results, depending on your tolerance for torture and violent revenge, are either exhilarating or sickening. In a town in which “everyone I knew was connected in one way or another to mob crime and civic corruption,” it’s inevitable that there’ll be lots of casualties as Nicky implicates almost every citizen in Youngstown en route to an anticlimactic showdown.

A feast of vengeance served piping hot that’s quite a departure for the generally more reflective creator of Milan Jacovich (The Irish Sports Pages, 2002, etc.).

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THE BARBARY DOGS

Robinson, Cynthia Minotaur Books (320 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 8, 2011 978-0-312-55974-8

An unlikely and unwilling amateur sleuth is forced to dig into the past to save his future.

Max Bravo is your typical bisexual, half-Gypsy opera singer who drinks too much and occasionally drops some acid.

His surprise when an old friend jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge turns to rage when he gets stuck settling his affairs.

Frank Kelly was more hotheaded than most failed poets, but Max discovers an even more dangerous side of him when he finds Frank’s diary while he’s cleaning out his apartment. The diary is partly written in another hand which a bookseller and graphologist identifies as belonging to Duffield Fallon, a vicious thug who died in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Having haunted Frank to his death, he now directs his attention on Max, who’s already accustomed to, if not exactly pleased by, visits from his late Gypsy grandmother. Another writer from Max’s past takes a dive off the bridge; he runs into a woman he once coveted, her striking beauty now marred by a ruinous scar; and the imperious Fallon continues to drive him crazy. Max realizes that he’ll never get his life back until he meets Fallon’s demands to find the woman he loved. His search for answers takes him and his friends on a wild ride through the dark and dangerous underbelly of the old Barbary Coast.

The only dog in this tale is Max’s pug, a legacy from his first plunge into detective work (The Dog Park Club, 2010).

This esoteric tale, peopled with dozens of quirky characters, draws you in and spits you out dazed and delighted with the journey.

DEATH’S LONG SHADOW

Roby, Kinley Five Star (422 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 21, 2011 978-1-4328-2535-5 P.I. Harry Brock has a difficult time handling his relationships with three women as he works a murder case.

Wealthy Floridian Brandon Pike is decapitated by a wire while out for a ride on his horse-breeding farm. His young wife Holly hires Harry to protect her interests. Pike had a complicated life, as Harry discovers, including a long-time affair with his half sister Clarissa Cruz, who holds the lease on the adjoining Oleander Farm.

The police suspect that Holly was having an affair with farm manager Tyce Yellen, but he is the next to be brutally attacked.

A number of animals are mutilated and a stable burned, forcing Harry to widen his pool of suspects. In the meantime, his ex-wife

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“Washburn’s Fresh Baked series continues to feature competent mysteries, likable characters and the obligatory recipes.” from the gingerbread bump - off

Katherine arrives for a visit causing a breach in his relationship with Soñadora Asturias that forces him to examine deeply buried feelings. The fact that the beautiful Holly is relying on him for emotional support further complicates his life. When Harry and Katherine are almost killed in a hail of bullets, Harry puts his life on the line to bring a determined killer to justice.

Another exciting entry in Roby’s Harry Brock series (Death’s Other Kingdom, 2009, etc.) set in southwest Florida.

Although mystery is lacking, there is plenty of action and romance to keep the reader engaged.

DEEP COVER

Turnbull, Peter Severn House (192 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-7278-8065-9 The first body found on Hampstead Heath may have been a case of accident or suicide, but the second, buried in a shallow grave underneath, was certainly murdered.

No one knows why Michael Dalkeith chose to lie out in Hampstead Heath in the bitter cold, dressed only in a thin jacket. Whatever his reason, it led to the young Irishman’s death of exposure. But what makes DC Ainsclough call DI Harry Vicary (Improving the Silence, 2010) isn’t Dalkeith’s body; it’s the skeletonized remains of a young woman buried just below. Medical examiner John Shaftoe concludes that this victim was battered to death many years before. To find who she was and why she died, Vicary probes the life of the fresher corpse. Dalkeith had recently left his wife Annie and their home in moderatelyplush Palmers Green to live in a room in Kilburn managed by WLM Rents. The room is an accommodation rental—let for free to those willing to do “odd jobs” for WLM, explains J.J. Dunwoodie, the rental agent. None of which explains why Ainsclough and fellow DC Frank Brunnie find the body of a young Welsh runaway lying in Dalkeith’s bed. A savage attack on Dunwoodie persuades Vicary that something is very wrong at WLM. But it takes persistence on his part, and the special talents of DC Penny Yewdall, to discover the extent of the corruption at WLM and its depraved owner Curtis Yates.

Whether it’s the London locale or a closer eye on the gritty details, Turnbull’s Vicary series is edgier than his Hennessey and Yellich entries (Aftermath, 2011, etc.).

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SILENCE

Wagner, Jan Costin Pegasus Crime (272 pp.) $25.00 | Dec. 15, 2011 978-1-60598-267-0 Now widowed of the beloved helpmeet who was dying in Ice Moon (2007), detective Kimmo Joentaa, of the Turko CID, grapples with a second, equally chilling case.

It’s been 33 years since Pia Lehtinen was raped and murdered. Her killer was never found—only her bicycle, abandoned at the side of a cycle path, and her corpse, recovered weeks later from a nearby lake. Now, Sinikka Vehkasalo, another teenager, has disappeared, her bicycle found in the place of the memorial marking the earlier unsolved crime. Is this new crime the work of a copycat, or has the original killer been driven to repeat his crime a generation later? The case falls to phlegmatic, reflective Joentaa, but he’d rather share it with Antsi Ketola, whose retirement has removed from the force its last veteran with firsthand knowledge of the Lehtinen case. Pia’s killer, quickly revealed as now-elderly caretaker Olavi Pärssinen, remains a minor figure; instead, the story focuses on his accomplice, real-estate agent Timo Korvensuo, bringing you so close to this sorry specimen that you feel trapped inside his head. As Joentaa and Ketola do their best to deal with Sinikka’s troubled parents and unearth traces of a third similar disappearance a mere 24 years back, Wagner slowly brings Timo’s combination of guilt, denial, passivity and enjoyment of his perfectly normal family to a boil.

What is it about those Scandinavians? Though Wagner’s cops get along equably enough, there’s precious little oxygen between the other characters, who seem to be carrying all the torment his striking debut reserved for the hero.

THE GINGERBREAD BUMP-OFF

Washburn, Livia J. Obsidian (304 pp.) $14.00 paperback | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-451-23483-4 An amateur sleuth’s Christmas plans are upset by murder.

Something’s cooking among the boarders in Phyllis Newsome’s home in Weatherford, Texas. Eve Turner is soon to marry Roy Porter. Her wedding plans are keeping Phyllis and Carolyn Wilbarger, another boarder, especially busy baking for Christmas and the upcoming nuptials. When local accountant Georgia Hallerbee asks Phyllis to decorate her house and become a stop on the Jingle Bell home tour, she reluctantly agrees. But Georgia pays the price for her initiative by getting attacked on her front porch with Phyllis’ ceramic gingerbread man. Phyllis ignores a police warning and starts sleuthing with the help of Sam Fletcher, yet another boarder. A little

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1985

investigation shows that several people were angry with Georgia over tax matters, but they all seem to have alibis. Once Georgia dies without regaining consciousness, Phyllis redoubles her efforts to solve the crime before Christmas.

Washburn’s Fresh Baked series (The Christmas Cookie Killer, 2008, etc.) continues to feature competent mysteries, likable characters and the obligatory recipes.

science fiction and fantasy STANDS A SHADOW

Buchanan, Col Tor (432 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 1, 2011 978-0-7653-3106-9

Sequel to Buchanan’s fantasy debut, Farlander (2011), which featured an evil, expansionist religious empire, its democratic adversaries and a saintly assassin cult.

Having destroyed the Roshun assassins, the Holy Empire of Mann turns its full attention to the siege of the city of Bar-Khos.

The young Matriarch, Sasheen, leads Mann’s vast armies in person, while tough, brilliant general Marsalas Creed struggles to gather reinforcements for the dwindling garrison, which Bar-Khos’ allies are reluctant to send. Old assassin Ash, meanwhile, wracked with guilt over the callous execution of his innocent apprentice, Nico, by the Matriarch, determines to kill Sasheen or perish in the attempt. What follows—Ash’s adventures interspersed with bloody battles—is well rendered and nicely paced but rarely surprising.

Except when one day a lake is frozen hard enough for a fleeing army to cross, whereas a day later one of the characters is swimming in a nearby river and not even complaining of the cold. The question that lingered after the first installment, whether or not Buchanan has a genuine imagination, must be answered in the negative: A few steampunk overtones, like flying warships, add little to the standard mix, no matter how competently crafted.

Readers willing to settle for stirring combat and vivid details may hang around, but those wanting a bigger bang for their buck will not.

1986

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fiction

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COUNT TO A TRILLION

Wright, John C. Tor (368 pp.) $25.99 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-0-7653-2927-1

Far-future space opera involving hyper-intelligence, aliens and artificial evolution, from the author of Null-A Continuum (2008, etc.).

In the 23rd century, on an Earth exhausted by wars, climate change and other ills, young mathematical genius Menelaus Montrose grows up in Texas and becomes a duelist to support his mother and siblings. Meanwhile, a robot starship now 50 light-years distant and orbiting a star made of antimatter—potentially an inexhaustible source of energy—reports a monument carved with symbols that appears to be a gift of enormously advanced knowledge. So a second starship, this time with Menelaus and other geniuses aboard, travels for a closer look. Secretly, however, Menelaus has used part of the monument’s wisdom to prepare a serum which, so he hopes, will boost his brain into super-genius mode. It has the desired effect, but unfortunately he goes insane. Years pass as if in a dream. Menelaus wakes to find he’s back on Earth. His old crewmate “Blackie” Del Azarchel has declared himself dictator, using deadly antimatter beams to enforce his will, and now intends to construct a super-intelligent artificial brain, the Iron Ghost, patterned after his own mind. Blackie drugs Menelaus back into genius mode to finish the job. But even Blackie fears the mysterious Princess, apparently born on the starship even though no women were aboard. Menelaus begins to realize that almost everything Blackie has told him is a lie. And what if the monument is actually a trap? Spectacularly clever, sometimes, in weaving together cutting edge speculation along the outer fringes of known science, but more often grindingly didactic, with no narrative flow and three genius protagonists all unpleasantly cold and unsympathetic: a case of everybody knowing everything but nobody knowing anything.

Highly impressive but indigestible: something like a vastly promising first draft that needed a lot more work.

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nonfiction THE BEST AMERICAN MAGAZINE WRITING 2011

SPEAKING AMERICAN A History of English in the United States

American Society of Magazine Editors Columbia Univ. (520 pp.) $16.95 paperback | Dec. 6, 2011 978-0-231-15940-1 More reliably solid, educational reading material awarded by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

Covering a variety of topics and interests, reporting merit was just one of the subjects judged for literary noteworthiness.

Michael Hastings skewered hardheaded four-star Army general Stanley McChrystal with such eagle-eyed scrutiny in “The Runaway General” (Rolling Stone) that it actually prompted the official’s resignation. In another standout, “Covert Operations” (New Yorker), Jane Mayer offers scathing analysis of Charles and David Koch, a duo of wealthy, manipulative libertarians powering what Mayer describes as an unscrupulous political machine.

The profile pieces offer lighter fare. Top honors goes to New York Times reporter Mark Liebovich’s profile of Mike Allen, one of America’s most influentially well-connected (and sleepdeprived) political news reporters. Jonathan Van Meter respectfully nods to his longtime comedienne comrade in “Joan Rivers Always Knew She Was Funny” (New York), as does Jonah Weiner in “Kanye West Has a Goblet” (Slate), a slickly written perusal of the grandiose rapper. There’s witty dispatches in Paige Williams’ Bikram yoga class discussion “My Bra’s Too Tight and It’s Never Too Late” (O, The Oprah Magazine) and an outstanding three-part piece from distinguished British author Christopher Hitchens on his battle with esophageal cancer in “Topic of Cancer and Unanswerable Prayers and Miss Manners and the Big C” (Vanity Fair). Elsewhere, Joel Brouwer’s thoughtful verse “Lines from the Reports of the Investigative Committees” (Poetry) succinctly illustrates the enormity of the BP oil spill in the same way Barbara Kingsolver’s eloquent short essay “Water Is Life” (National Geographic) beautifully underscores the vital benefits of Earth’s most precious natural resource.

From serious to sublime, there’s a bounty of periodical perfection here.

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Bailey, Richard W. Oxford Univ. (240 pp.) $27.95 | Jan. 5, 2012 978-0-19-517934-7

A former associate editor of the Oxford Companion to the English Language identifies eight major centers of influence on American English and describes how each has helped shape the tongue of today.

Bailey (Rogue Scholar: The Sinister Life and Celebrated Death of Edward H. Rulloff, 2001, etc.), who died in April 2011, is a genial host in his tour of linguistic history. In his introduction, he places fresh daggers in the heart of the idea that language can somehow be perfected and standardized and celebrates the ability of English to change, adapt, adopt, steal and transform.

Then he offers a series of succinct chapters, each focusing on a certain region whose influence on the language has been profound. He begins on the Chesapeake Bay, where the English, American Indians and enslaved Africans converged. He moves on to 17th-century Boston, where he notes the Puritans’ fondness for words of Germanic origin and mentions some Algonquin words that linger in the language (“wigwam,” “squaw”).

Next: Charleston, S.C., where the Spanish influence was immense, and “the vocabulary of slavery was deeply embedded.”

Philadelphia, writes Bailey, brought together English, Swedes, Germans and Scots-Irish. New Orleans in the early 19th century was “the most compactly multilingual place in the country.” Bailey quotes liberally from English visitor Fanny Trollope, whose 1832 Domestic Manners of the Americans sniffed disdainfully at our linguistic and other inelegancies. In his New York segment, the author revisits the deadly 1849 Shakespeare Riots (should Macbeth speak like an American or Brit?) and cites the influence of journalist/poet William Cullen Bryant. Then it’s Chicago and Los Angeles and the effects of the underworld and pop culture—from Gidget to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Swift, informative and not too scholarly for general readers.

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A LINE IN THE SAND The Anglo-French Struggle for the Middle East 1914-1948 Barr, James Norton (352 pp.) $27.95 | Jan. 9, 2012 978-0-393-07065-1

A British historian methodically traces the pernicious ramifications of the French-British rivalry in Syria and Lebanon after World War I. Barr (Setting the Desert on Fire: T. E. Lawrence and Britain’s Secret War in Arabia, 1916-1918, 2008) carefully places the fragments of the Middle East puzzle together after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, from the divisive, arbitrary British-French Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 to the Zionists’ use of terrorism to oust the British and establish the state of Israel in 1948. Reluctant allies against the Germans, the British and French had to divide the Ottoman spoils, and the agreement essentially “drew a line in the sand” from Acre to Kirkuk, the north falling under French protection and the south to the British. Both sides ignored the incipient rise of Arab nationalism, except when Sharif Hussein’s revolt of June 1916 promised the British a way of undermining French influence in the region, with T.E. Lawrence being a convenient tool of organizing the Arabs. Meanwhile, the British were quietly promising the Zionists a homeland in Palestine as a way of courting the Americans. Britain’s need for oil prompted a tidy exchange with the French: oil-rich Mosul and Jerusalem for the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine. Self-determination vaguely promised to the Arabs by the victorious powers at the close of WWI would only arrive after revolt against both British and French rulers, all while the Jewish emigration aroused the ire of the Palestinian Arabs. Barr sure-footedly wades through this political morass, noting some startling developments, such as Charles de Gaulle and the Free French’s brazen tenacity in holding on to Syria and Lebanon, and French assistance in arming the Zionist terrorists against the British.

A carefully constructed chronicle of a shameful imperialist carve-up. (30 photographs and maps)

GLOCK The Rise of America’s Gun Barrett, Paul M. Crown (304 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 10, 2012 978-0-307-71993-5

A Bloomberg BusinessWeek editor takes expert aim at Glock—the man, the company, the handgun.

Before it was “America’s gun,” it was Austria’s, where outside Vienna Gaston Glock operated a garage metal shop. When the Austrian Army needed a new sidearm in the early 1980s, the unlikely Glock designed a revolutionary semi-automatic pistol, featuring a 1988

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polymer-fashioned frame. Light, thin, easy to shoot and maintain, Glock 17 beat back media assaults against easily concealable “plastic pistols” and, instead, earned the attention of U.S. law-enforcement agencies looking for greater “stopping power” against increasingly better armed criminals. Offering huge discounts and shrewdly marketing to police from its facility in Smyrna, Ga., the company employed Gold Club strippers and Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders to attract crowds, entertain clients and lend the pistol a sexy cachet that grew exponentially when it popped up all over TV and movies as the gun of choice for cops and killers alike. Within the industry, Glock went its own way, quietly settling or aggressively defending lawsuits, alternately feuding or making nice with the federal and city governments and the powerful NRA. Having reported this story for years, Barrett (American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion, 2006, etc.) well knows every aspect of the Glock phenomenon, the company’s astonishing rise to market dominance and its seamy business practices—which have included money laundering, tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions. The author unmasks the in-house lawyers who embezzled and the financial advisor who siphoned funds and who clumsily attempted an assassination of the increasingly imperious founder, whose taste for mistresses and lavish entertainments only grew as Glock amassed billions. Gun enthusiasts surely will enjoy Barrett’s account, but it also serves as a colorful case study of the manufacturer who beat long-entrenched, legendary brands at their own game.

A solidly reported story of a modern-day Samuel Colt who transformed the handgun business. (First printing of 50,000. Agent: Stuart Krichevsky)

DESIGN IN NATURE How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution In Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization

Bejan, Adrian and Zane, J. Peder Doubleday (288 pp.) $27.95 | Jan. 24, 2012 978-0-385-53461-1

Thermodynamics expert Bejan (Engineering/Duke Univ.; Porous and Complex Flow Structures in Modern Technologies, 2011 etc.) claims to have discovered a new scientific principle called the “constructal law.”

With the assistance of columnist Zane, Bejan takes the evolution of “finite-size flow system[s]” as a model to exemplify his unifying principle that allegedly explains the design of all natural systems—both inanimate and animate, biological or social.

The author conflates life and motion, writing that “anything that flows… is ‘alive’ because it evolves”—whether it be a river or a human being—and that the “hydrosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere are a tapestry of engines attached to brakes.” Bejan compares himself favorably to Newton and Darwin, and he suggests that a law similar to the constructal law applies to the way that tributaries flow into rivers, increasing the speed of the flowing water; to highway systems and athletic

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“The author uses wisdom and wit to substantiate her contention that love and passion are not definable by biology.” from straight

competitions, in which athletes achieve record-breaking performances; and to the military, which channels soldiers, supplies, vehicles, strategies, etc. Lest the title suggest that he is a supporter of theories of Intelligent Design, the author explicitly rejects the existence of a designer. He also opts for hierarchical social systems and the concentration of power and wealth.

Bejan provides clear explanations of basic design principles as they apply to fluid flow, the design of computer chips and the function of animal circulatory systems, but his broader claim to have discovered an umbrella theory about the universe is unconvincing.

AMERICAN FORCE Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security

Betts, Richard K. Columbia Univ. (384 pp.) $29.50 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-0-231-15122-1

Betts (Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security, 2009, etc.), the director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, surveys the landscape of American national security with a dispassionate and analytical eye.

Placing current issues in their historical context, the author begins with the evolution of NATO from a mutual defense pact into a new political club and a means of extending American power into the “New Europe.” The end of the Cold War freed America to use force “on behalf of the so-called international community,” but too often its poorly conceived interventions prolonged suffering instead of relieving it. Betts criticizes a “profoundly confused” policy that “abetted slow-motion savagery” in Bosnia, for example, and recommends a set of standards by which to determine when military intervention for humanitarian purposes is likely to be a worthwhile option. The author also explores the nature of the changing threat from WMD, appropriate responses to terrorism and insurgency, serious concerns about the possibility of military conflict with China, appropriate levels of defense funding and whether the entire concept of strategy in military affairs has any meaning. “The expansive concept of national security carried over from the Cold War, when it was necessary, to the unipolar world, when it was tempting,” writes Betts, who advocates for “less ambitious uses of force for world ordering in the near term, present concentration on forceful counterterrorism and nonforcible counterproliferation.” While he recognizes the ongoing need for military force as a foreignpolicy option, he cautions that America should avoid bluffs and either go all in or stay out. Betts does not shill for any particular ideology; he presents closely, sometimes densely reasoned arguments for his conclusions.

Highly recommended for aficionados of foreign-policy and national-security issues.

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STRAIGHT The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality Blank, Hanne Beacon (264 pp.) $27.95 | Jan. 31, 2012 978-0-8070-4443-8 978-0-8070-4444-5 e-book

Independent scholar Blank, a social historian who has written extensively on sexual subjects (Virgin: The Untouched History, 2007; Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them, 2000), turns her attention to changing attitudes toward mainstream sexual identity.

She begins with the startling information that the term heterosexuality was invented as an identifying category in 1869.

Until then, the term “sodomy” was used to describe proscribed sexual relationships outside of marriage—the presumption being that the purpose of a proper sexual relationship was procreation. In this chronicle of changing sexual mores, the author challenges the common preconception today that the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality is legitimate.

Beginning on a personal note, Blank reveals the circumstances of her own long-term partnership with a person whose genetic structure is anomalous—his sex chromosome is XXY rather than XX or XY—something he only found out belatedly since to all appearance he was a typical male, albeit with an absence of facial hair. The author explores the various ways that our beliefs about biological sex and gender have varied historically and why, in her opinion, they are still confused. Patterns of appropriate behavior have changed radically from the 19th century, when lawyers typically shared a bed when they rode the circuit without any implication of impropriety. While women since then have increasingly gained equality politically and in the workplace, only very recently has that autonomy extended to the bedroom. Blank uses the case of erectile dysfunction to illustrate a hidden meaning of heterosexuality today: In “the model of pleasure that Viagra is marketed to serve…Viagra-fueled erections are intended for vaginal penetration…the only fully legitimate source of sexual pleasure for most of Western history.” Moreover, homosexual “men who take the insertive role of sex with other men are likely to be perceived as more masculine and sexually respectable” than their passive counterpart.

The author uses wisdom and wit to substantiate her contention that love and passion are not definable by biology.

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FRATERNITY

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON

Brady, Diane Spiegel & Grau (288 pp.) $25.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-385-52474-2 978-0-385-52962-4 e-book

Collins, Gail Times/Henry Holt (192 pp.) $23.00 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-0-8050-9118-2

A tribute to the cadre of black students who arrived at the College of the Holy Cross in the fall of 1968, and to the professor who recruited them.

In the mid-’60s, Holy Cross typically admitted only two black students per year. Convinced that this ethnic homogeneity risked consigning his college to irrelevance in a changing era, the Rev. John Brooks, a professor of theology, set out to recruit promising black students for the class entering in the fall of 1968. Brooks proved to be an extraordinary talent scout. His incoming group of 20 included Edward Jones, who would win a Pulitzer Prize in 2004; Edward Jenkins, who would play for the Miami Dolphins; Theodore Wells, today one of the nation’s premier trial attorneys; and a sophomore transfer student named Clarence Thomas. In this workmanlike debut, Bloomberg BusinessWeek contributor Brady follows this group of courageous young men as they adapted to the challenges of college life in an overwhelmingly white institution and city, and as the college adapted to their arrival. Brooks was a persistent mentor and advocate for these students and their successors in later classes; he insisted that some adaptation was necessary, as the black students “didn’t have the role models in the classroom or the easy comfort of being in the majority.” He argued for extra consideration but not lower standards, encouraging his colleagues to strive “to understand where skin color made a difference, and where it did not.” The actual conflicts that arose as a result of the influx of black students are familiar: demands for more black faculty and students, black studies classes, more scholarship aid, separate black living quarters, a disciplinary process more sensitive to the concerns of students of color.

Brady narrates the college’s navigation through these controversies without much further analysis. Similarly, her portraits of various students ably describe their personal struggles without considering which racial issues they confronted may have been unique to the times and which are of persisting relevance.

The book succeeds as an encomium to Brooks and his band of pioneering brothers, but misses an opportunity to excel as either biography or timely history.

This splendid series of slim biographies nears completion with a satisfying life of our ninth and least important president.

New York Times columnist Collins (When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, 2009) admits that Harrison (1773–1841) accomplished little before dying a month after inauguration. His career peaked nearly 30 years earlier, but he was not the first politician to milk earlier triumphs. The son of a prosperous Virginia planter, he served several years in the Army before using family influence to win appointment as Indiana Territory governor in 1800, where his job was to encourage white settlement and remove Indians. He won a national reputation after the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe, a bloody skirmish in which far more whites than Indians died. As a general in the War of 1812, he won the Battle of the Thames in Canada, another glorified skirmish that was acclaimed because the widely feared Indian leader, Tecumseh, was killed. Resigning in 1814, Harrison retired to his Ohio estate and a mediocre political career, winning some offices, losing others. He was the first Whig candidate for president in 1836 and lost, but won in the famously lowbrow “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too” 1840 campaign, which began the American tradition (unique among democracies) of candidates boasting that they are no smarter than the electorate and that this ordinariness makes them fit to lead the nation.

Although more a journalist than a historian, Collins has done her homework and written a lively, opinionated portrait of early-19th-century America and the modestly talented general who briefly became president.

EMOTIONAL EQUATIONS Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

Conley, Chip Free Press (256 pp.) $24.00 | Jan. 10, 2012 978-1-4516-0725-3

A method for exploring the relationships between different emotions using simple, non-numeric mathematical equations.

Presenting what appears to be a fully realized if not always easy-to-comprehend original idea, boutique hotelier, self-actualization speaker and author Conley (Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, 2007, etc.) suggests that what he terms emotional mathematics can help solve personal and organizational problems. Using a never-too-revealing autobiographical approach, he describes his own emotional torment in 2008, a 1990

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year in which the hospitality industry all but collapsed and when he suffered heart failure minutes after making a business presentation. This capped other traumas—including the suicides of five friends, a failed relationship and the unjust incarceration of a family member in San Quentin State Prison—and threw Conley into deep despair. He describes how he pulled himself up by re-reading psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor Viktor Frankl’s memoir Man’s Search for Meaning and distilling its message into his own book’s central formula: Despair = Suffering - Meaning. “In other words, despair is what results when suffering has no meaning,” he writes. The equation, while profoundly meaningful to the author, falls short of being intuitively obvious, as do several others in the book. Does joy really equal love minus fear? Is jealousy equal to mistrust divided by self-esteem? Is anxiety equal to uncertainty times powerlessness?

The author demonstrates great intellectual breadth, entertaining enthusiasm and far right-brained thinking, but readers may wonder about the absence of the exactitude that prevails in real mathematics.

ROOSEVELT’S LOST ALLIANCES How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War

Costigliola, Frank Princeton Univ. (544 pp.) $35.00 | Jan. 1, 2012 978-0-691-12129-1

A meandering mishmash of biography and history delves into the personalities of World War II’s Grand Alliance—especially its “fulcrum,” FDR. Roosevelt kept the three Allies working together to fend off the Nazi menace, balancing the tenacity of Churchill with the ruthlessness of Stalin by sheer dint of Roosevelt’s magnetic personality. Yet by FDR’s death in 1945 the alliance cracked, and President Truman, no friend of the Soviets, allowed the prevailing suspicions among the three to undermine the postwar relationships and usher in the Cold War. In this sometimes entertaining but thematically flailing work, Costigliola (History/Univ. of Connecticut; France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II, 1992, etc.) casts among the diplomatic players that contributed both to the success of the Grand Alliance and its unraveling. The author compares the background and schooling of the three—e.g., the privileged aristocracies of Churchill and Roosevelt versus the hardscrabble working-class upbringing of Stalin and the varying degrees of parental love (e.g., Stalin was brutalized by his father, while Roosevelt was doted upon by his mother) as having affected their respective leadership styles. In particular, Costigliola traces the indispensable working friendship between Roosevelt and Marguerite “Missy” LeHand, who became “in effect his chief-of-staff,” and Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, a man of action who moved into the White House during the war years so that he could be at Roosevelt’s disposal. Both Churchill |

and Stalin, likewise suffering ill health due to the pressures of war, had their long-suffering assistants, while Stalin had his “political club,” who adored their leader but felt abused by the purges, and grew resentful. All worked their personal touch at conferences such as Yalta and Tehran. With Roosevelt’s death, relations with the Soviets were dominated by issues around the atomic bomb, and alarmist policies over Soviet intentions fueled perilous mutual distrust.

Costigliola provides engaging pick-and-choose historical highlights rather than a fluent narrative.

WORLD IN THE BALANCE The Historic Quest for a Universal System of Measurement Crease, Robert P. Norton (288 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 24, 2011 978-0-393-07298-3

A look at how weights and measures evolved over the ages, and their importance as a social bond.

Physics World columnist Crease (Philosophy/Stony Brook Univ.; The Great Equations, 2009, etc.) starts with the beginning of commerce. From early times, merchants and their customers needed a set of standards that would assure both that they were getting a fair deal. Different societies arrived at different methods of attaining this goal. In China, each new dynasty needed to prove its legitimacy by “improving” its predecessors’ standards for weight, length and music. In West Africa, the use of small figurines to measure gold became the keystone of society. But as trade became more international, the great trading nations began to impose their standards on their partners.

Britain and France were in many ways the leaders, the former with the Imperial system, the latter, after the Revolution, with the metric system. This battle for dominance makes up much of the narrative. The meter was a philosophical construct, based in theory on the size of the Earth—specifically, on the meridian of longitude passing through Paris. The French government sent out expeditions to measure the meridian and arrived after some trouble at a standard meter. Advocates of the new system immediately began to proselytize for it, sending copies of the standard to other nations including the United States, where the “scientific” measure had a strong advocate in Thomas Jefferson. Crease also emphasizes how human nature played a part, both in the success of the new system and in the resistance to it.

Especially in America, religious conservatives railed against its adoption as early as the 1860s. Meanwhile, American scientists were among those who strove to improve its accuracy. Crease provides a solid explanation of how something so arbitrary can be made truly “universal.”

Scientific history that looks beyond the facts and figures to their influence on everyday life.

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“A profound demonstration of what needs to be recognized, reconciled and forgiven if current crises are to be overcome.” from haiti

VANISHED KINGDOMS The Rise and Fall of States and Nations

HAITI The Aftershocks of History Dubois, Laurent Metropolitan/Henry Holt (448 pp.) $32.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-8050-9335-3

Davies, Norman Viking (804 pp.) $40.00 | Jan. 5, 2012 978-0-670-02273-1

Distinguished British historian Davies (No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939–1945, etc.) delves into 15 once-great, now-fallen states, from the ancient Visigoths to the Soviet Union.

The author again displays an enormous breadth of knowledge in this selective yet comprehensive historical study of thriving kingdoms that eventually gave way to internal or external forces such as implosion or conquest. Davies is inspired by the epic movement of peoples, starting with the writhing of barbarian hordes that invaded the rotting Roman Empire, namely the Visigoths, who established the Kingdom of Tolosa (modern-day Toulouse) in 418 CE. They lasted for 89 years and spread (into Iberia) a unique Gothic speech, political culture and architecture. These were only one of many interrelated linguistic sub-groups that moved into pockets of Europe, such as the Ostrogoths, Lombards and Burgundians, all now vanished, but leaving in their wake a rich “contaminating” of language, culture and gene pool. Davies delights in recounting the “Kingdom of the Rock,” aka the Old North (Scotland), which was once inhabited by the Ancient Britons (as opposed to the Celts or the Anglo-Saxons), giving forth such legendary notables as St. Patrick, King Arthur and St. Mungo, before being eclipsed by myriad tribes and the Vikings.

The author also examines the obscure state of Belarus and its capital Minsk, locus of a dizzying collision of migrating tribes, but he seems overwhelmed by the task of summarizing the complex civilization of Byzantion. Davies dwells instead on Borussia, where the early Prusai, the “People of the Lagoon,” mingled with their invited guests, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, creating a potent socio-military machine of conquest.

Other recondite searches wander into Italy, Germany and her rivaling Saxon duchies, ancestral Éire and, finally, Estonia as emblematic of the Soviet Union’s pernicious cultural manipulation. A fine concluding chapter, “How States Die,” offers a robust roundup for the diligent reader.

As usual with Davies, an exceedingly accomplished and dauntingly thorough study.

A vigorous retelling of Haiti’s history intended to revive the promise of the world’s first black-led republic.

This is not a story of the decline of a small nation, but an inspiring account of the struggle against adversity for freedom and independence.

Dubois (History and French Studies/Duke Univ.; Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France, 2010, etc.) narrates the story of Toussaint Louverture’s leadership of the slave population of France’s most profitable colony to independence in 1791, emancipation in 1793 and recognition by the government in 1794. The author also examines how Napoleon reversed independence and sent an army that was crushed in 1804 by Louverture and his collaborators and successors; how the Congress of Vienna secretly gave France the right to invade the country; and how Haiti was excluded from the Monroe Doctrine. Haiti was free, but a free country established by former black slaves—they had transgressed an order based not only on plantation slavery but also racism. Invasion, blockade and isolation were used to deny Haitians their place among the free nations of the world; the United States did not recognize the country until Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860. Haiti endured until the U.S. Marines were sent to steal the country’s gold and occupy the island in 1915. Franklin Roosevelt took credit for rewriting the constitution, and corporate-owned plantation-based production was reintroduced to replace the family-based system of land tenure. As Dubois writes, “the occupation propelled Haiti’s political system backward by a century,” and the country has not been permitted to recover to the present.

A profound demonstration of what needs to be recognized, reconciled and forgiven if current crises are to be overcome.

THE SERIAL KILLER WHISPERER How One Man’s Tragedy Helped Unlock the Deadliest Secrets of the World’s Most Terrifying Killers Earley, Pete Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $24.99 | Jan. 10, 2012 978-1-4391-9902-2

A highly disturbing, in-depth look at notorious serial killers.

As a young Texan, Tony Ciaglia enjoyed a rambunctious childhood, but a near-fatal jet-ski accident left him comatose at 15. Suffering from brain damage, he was prone to angry rages, 1992

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depression and obsessions, such as one with an Internet site advertising serial killer “murderabilia.” After intensive research and with his therapist’s blessing, Ciaglia mailed 41 introductory letters to—and received responses from—a laundry list of killers, including “Cross Country Killer” Glen Rogers, who meticulously described the details of his first murder. Regular communication emerged from the best of the worst: child rapist and cannibal Arthur Shawcross, neurotic sexual sadist David Alan Gore and Joseph Metheny, a career murderer who unremorsefully “enjoyed” the butchering and necrophilic molestation of women. Investigative journalist Earley (Comrade J, 2008, etc.) documents Ciaglia’s intensive interplay with a brilliant combination of scrutiny and unobtrusive narration, allowing the verbatim letters to do the book’s grisly spadework. The letters incrementally ramp up to reveal the killers’ shockingly intimate secrets, including stories of their traumatic childhoods, admitted details on abandoned case files, specific directions to shallow graves and the grotesquely detailed procedurals of a kill. Ciaglia’s involvement with these killers, many of whom were sympathetic to his plight, escalated to penitentiary visits, the attempted exhumation of unrecovered remains and, finally, assistance with police investigators working on cold cases.

Definitely not for the faint of heart, this as a macabre, stomach-turning glimpse at true crime’s most evil villains.

DIRTY! DIRTY! DIRTY! Of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers: An American Tale of Sex and Wonder

Edison, Mike Soft Skull Press (320 pp.) $15.95 paperback | Nov. 8, 2011 978-1-59376-284-1

Veteran porn editor and novelist looks at the history of American girlie mags.

Edison (I Have Fun Wherever I Go, 2008, etc.)—former High Times publisher, Hustler and Penthouse correspondent and editor in chief of Screw magazine—takes readers on an enthusiastic romp through the rise and fall of the major porno magazines of the 20th century, while profiling the self-imploding personalities who innovated effective ways of selling sexual fantasies to the average sexually dissatisfied male. Edison credibly insists that it’s these pornographers who have done all the important free-expression dirty work. His loudmouthed prose voice mixes punk attitude with a self-conscious literary style, giving a racy but otherwise conventional biographical account of high-rolling porn peddlers like Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione, Al Goldstein and Larry Flynt. It’s an interesting study of the ways influence can snowball: Using Esquire as a springboard, Hefner’s Playboy became the innovator of men’s pin-up magazines, with incrementally raunchier improvements made to this publishing model over the years by big guns like Penthouse, Hustler, and Screw. Predictably, Edison trashes Hefner as a woman hater and increasingly clueless antiquarian. Penthouse honcho Guccione |

and Screw founder Goldstein have the most extreme rags-toriches-to-rags stories. Guccione made a fortune with his Vaseline-lensed nudie shots but lost it all in a predictable maelstrom of stupidity and greed. Goldstein went on to million-dollar success in New York with his hotheaded porno-political humor but was eventually felled by the Internet and (surprise!) arrogance and greed. Lawsuit-addled wheelchair warrior Flynt comes across as heroic in comparison: two bullets in the back and he’s still running a diversified, expanding porn empire. However, the brunt of the biographical facts on Flynt and Hefner seems more like common knowledge for most readers interested in Edison’s subject. More intriguing are the author’s findings on lesser players in the porn game, such as the extraordinarily hapless Ralph Ginzburg, among others.

Brash and fun, but the biographical research yields few titillating surprises—not as consistently entertaining as the electric I Have Fun Everywhere I Go.

BABEL NO MORE The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners Erard, Michael Free Press (256 pp.) $25.99 | Jan. 10, 2012 978-1-4516-2825-8

Erard (Um…: Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean, 2007) reports the results of his attempts to locate people who are able to learn multiple languages.

These people are called hyperpolyglots, and the most famous of them appears throughout the author’s compelling text: Giuseppe Mezzofanti, a 19th-century Bolognese priest who supposedly knew more than 20 languages, maybe even more. Erard pursued Mezzofanti’s story to Bologna but was frustrated by the camouflage of history that hides the priest’s true accomplishments. How much did he really know? How can anyone know that many languages? Are there comparable people today? During his journey, Erard discovered some other troubling questions: What does it mean to “know a language”?

The author visited multilingual cultures, viewed slides of a thinsliced brain, reviewed research on language and the brain and talked with some contemporary hyperpolyglots—one of whom studies and reviews most of the day. There are some moments of density in the narrative, but moments of lightness as well— e.g., the fact that gum chewing improves the recall of memories.

Near the end the author looks at a competition in Belgium that gathered some of the most noted hyperpolyglots, and he concludes that such folks need the “neural hardware” to reach such lofty levels as well as a sense of purpose and a self-definition as a language learner.

A mesmerizing voyage into the thickets of questions about what it means to be human.

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“Engaging stories from a storyteller who doesn’t just know his subject—he loves it.” from one on one

ONE ON ONE Behind the Scenes with the Greats In the Game

Feinstein, John Little, Brown (448 pp.) $27.99 | Dec. 5, 2011 978-0-316-07904-4

The sports journalist and author of sports-related mysteries chats candidly about his first 10 nonfiction books, beginning with A Season on the Brink (1986), and chases down some of their principal characters for a reunion.

The former basketball coach at the University of Indiana, Bob Knight, dominates this book, even as he dominated the first.

Feinstein (The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game, 2010, etc.) devotes most of the first 150 pages to Knight, who pops up for return visits throughout, then reappears for a valediction. The author concedes that Knight has some virtues (among them— his former players remain loyal) but believes those virtues are drowned by the torrents of arrogance and entitlement that surge from Knight’s personality. By contrast, Feinstein writes fondly about his experiences covering the ACC, especially the relationships he developed with coaches Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith and the late Jim Valvano. He then segues into tennis, writing about such icons as Jimmy Connors (whom no one seemed to like), John McEnroe and—a favorite—Ivan Lendl, who was standoffish until Feinstein encountered some problems with state security in Czechoslovakia. He moves on to baseball and golf, where he writes about interviews with Palmer and Nicklaus, his friendship with David Duval and the massive personal failings of Tiger Woods, who will not find any comfort in these pages.

The author bestows his greatest affection on the players he met while writing about the Army-Navy game and on those from the Patriot League basketball teams whose stories he told in The Last Amateurs (2000). At times, Feinstein reveals his own ego issues, often quoting people who praise him.

Engaging stories from a storyteller who doesn’t just know his subject—he loves it.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THOUGHT A Philosophical Guide to Living

Ferry, Luc Perennial/HarperCollins (304 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Jan. 17, 2012 978-0-06-207424-9

The award-winning French philosopher briefly summarizes the major philosophical ideas since Ancient Greece and explains why he has opted for contemporary humanism.

Ferry (Philosophy/The Sorbonne; Learning to Live: A User’s Manual, 2010, etc.) writes that some dinner guests recently 1994

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challenged him to create a philosophy course for children and adults, something presumably accessible to both. If this book is the result, Hogwartians may be the only children capable of comprehension. But many college-educated Muggles will doubtless find it useful, too. The author begins with perhaps the most difficult question (What is philosophy?) and offers a three-dimensional answer: salvation (not in the religious sense), theory and morals and ethics (terms he uses interchangeably).

The author then moves on to his historical tour of philosophical ideas, focusing on the first superstars—Plato, Aristotle et al. He examines how Christianity was able to supplant the Greeks (the religion’s vastly appealing notion of the afterlife) before moving on to humanism, a movement prompted by the discoveries and thought of Copernicus, Newton, Descartes and Galileo. Kant and Rousseau earn high marks here (though not the highest).

Next comes Nietzsche. The author acknowledges, more than once, how that philosopher’s ideas, unfortunately, appealed to the Nazis, but Ferry mostly succeeds in separating the thoughts from the deeds. The author views Heidegger as the most important post-Nietzschean, focusing sharply on that philosopher’s views of technology and materialism and how they threaten the possibility of a more reflective, philosophical population. Ferry tries to lighten the tone of the narrative with literature (Poe makes an appearance, as does V.S. Naipaul) and popular culture (allusions to digital music). Ferry is an atheist and suggests throughout that religion is irrelevant.

A focused history, neither simple nor simplistic, that— no surprise—shows the history of philosophy moving inexorably toward the author’s current beliefs.

THE JOURNAL OF BEST PRACTICES A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband Finch, David Scribner (256 pp.) $25.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-4391-8971-9

In his debut memoir, Finch relates how the diagnosis of his autism-spectrum condition came as a relief because it helped explain his obsessive habits, extreme social unease and egocentricity.

What had before been understood as character flaws were instead traits and tendencies that were hardwired in his neurological makeup. Moreover, Finch came to understand that Asperger-related tendencies—e.g., a near-complete lack of empathy and the inability to adjust to changing schedules— were at the root of his strained relationship with his wife and his frustrations as a parent of two young children. “Receiving such a diagnosis as an adult might seem shocking and unsettling,” he writes. “It wasn’t. Eye-opening, yes. Life-changing, yes. But not upsetting in the least…the diagnosis ultimately changed my life for the better.” With an endearing and sometimes manic energy,

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Finch sought to better understand the needs of his family and plot how he could modify his behaviors in order to regain intimacy with them. To help him succeed, the author created the Journal of Best Practices, a hodgepodge collection of journal entries and random scraps of paper that record moments of personal insight such as “Parties are supposed to be fun” and “Laundry: Better to fold and put away than to take only what you need from the dryer.” With an alternately comical and starkly painful voice, Finch uses these and other moments of epiphany to explore the inroads of emotional intimacy.

Funny, moving and insightful. (Agent: Suzanne Gluck)

BETRAYAL Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down

Fitzpatrick, Robert with Land, Jon Forge (320 pp.) $24.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-7653-3551-7 A courageous FBI agent recounts his battle against a corrupt law-enforcement culture that protected one of the nation’s most notorious criminals.

By the time he was ordered to Boston in 1980, Fitzpatrick had already distinguished himself, handling 1960s KKK bombings in Mississippi and uncovering crucial evidence relating to the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, but putting the Boston FBI office on the “straight and narrow” proved impossible.

Fitzpatrick and novelist Land (Strong at the Break, 2011, etc.) trace the breakdown of discipline and order there back to the ‘50s and the beginning of the furious effort to bring down La Cosa Nostra. Out of greed and ambition, agents went “native,” choosing their “Boston Irish roots…over loyalty to the organization.” In exchange for what turned out to be worthless information about the Italian gangsters, they leaked to and protected Irish mob chieftain James “Whitey” Bulger and his right-hand man, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, allowing them literally to get away with murder. Fitzpatrick understood immediately that Bulger should have been an investigative and prosecutorial target, but during three frustrating years he couldn’t “close” him as an informant. Pushback from colleagues, prosecutors and superiors with too much to lose—”Don’t embarrass the Bureau” was the overriding imperative—cost Fitzpatrick his job and his starry-eyed belief in the FBI’s efficiency and honor. The author’s assessment of the Boston Bureau has been vindicated in a series of civil and criminal trials, but he convincingly argues that the corruption ran much deeper than the single agent convicted. After more than 25 years on the lam, Bulger was recently arrested. Will Whitey sing?

The FBI must tremble at the prospect.

An alarming, depressing tale of how law enforcement lost its way, how the insidious line between cop and criminal can be so easily obliterated.

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GIRL LAND

Flanagan, Caitlin Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown (224 pp.) $25.99 | Jan. 12, 2012 978-0-316-06598-6 Flanagan (To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife, 2006) argues that society “has let its girls down in every possible way” by failing to protect them against sexual exploitation.

The author claims that parents who impose protective limits on their daughters are not shortchanging them by treating them differently than sons—especially because we are living in a media and marketing-driven culture that is “openly contemptuous of girls and young women.” Flanagan points to the inherently different ways that females experience the onset of adulthood: menstruation, which raises the dangers associated with pregnancy as well as the promise of motherhood; the lurking possibility of date-rape as well as the opportunity for sexual fulfillment; and more. In her opinion, today’s pornography-saturated culture devalues intimacy and threatens a young woman’s sense of identity as she deals with her vulnerable emerging sexuality. While in the past a girl might retreat to her room to entrust her secret fantasies to a diary, today she is more likely to be online, reporting them to the world on Facebook or Twitter.

The author trolls through the pages of Seventeen, uncovering evidence of how growing up has been transformed since the end of World War I. She takes the prom as a benchmark. From a dance celebrating high-school graduation, it has gradually morphed into a costly formal event almost on par with a wedding, with formal dress and a strict code of behavior. Today, the chaperoned prom is often followed by another party, with heavy drinking and, often, sexual exploitation or abuse.

A compelling, convincing case for more parental involvement in girls’ lives.

SISTER QUEENS The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile Fox, Julia Ballantine (432 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 1, 2012 978-0-345-51604-6 978-0-345-53231-2 e-book

An initially inspired juxtaposition of the lives of the two Spanish sister queens grows saccharine in the hands of British historical researcher Fox (Jane Boleyn, 2007).

The daughters of Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon were positioned at a very young age to marry the most illustrious monarchs of Europe and inherit enormous power in their own right. Yet both were outmaneuvered by the men around them—father, husbands, son—and both eventually

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“An insightful, bitingly humorous book.” from pity the billionaire

squandered and lost their power, dying in shame and isolation.

Fox fashions a sympathetic, storybook narrative of the two sisters, daughters of strong monarchs, especially their mother, who spearheaded the Reconquista of 1492. The girls were educated in Latin and married off in their mid-teens, Juana to Philip of Burgundy, and Katherine to Arthur, Henry VII of England’s eldest son. Fate intervened swiftly and changed the course of history: A series of deaths of her older siblings left Juana in the position of inheriting her parents’ kingdom, while her new husband began systematically to rob her of her authority, casting doubt about her sanity; in England, Arthur’s death left Katherine vulnerable until finally she was wedded by his brother Henry VIII and made queen—temporarily. Juana, for her part, despite her sovereignty and the many children she would bear her husband, was essentially disinherited from and then imprisoned first by her father, Ferdinand, then her own son, Carlos V, for the remaining 46 years of her life. Was she truly mad or deliberately enfeebled in the power struggle? Her sister Katherine, more politically astute, had acted as Henry VIII’s equal, until her inability to provide a male heir prompted him to divorce her and she was forced to acquiesce. Fox takes the side of the ill-fated sisters, but she does not offer any new light through the murky historical record.

A sad tale drawn out and viewed through rose-colored glasses. (16-page color insert; 1 map; 2 family trees. Agent: Christy Fletcher)

PITY THE BILLIONAIRE The Unlikely Resurgence of the American Right

Frank, Thomas Metropolitan/Henry Holt (224 pp.) $25.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-8050-9369-8

Why one of the biggest financial disasters in history somehow strengthened the political position of those who were most responsible.

Columnist Frank (The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, 2008, etc.) proposes a few possible explanations. The Obama administration has been too compromised with financial bailouts and has had nothing else substantial to offer, and business sponsors have provided huge amounts of funding and air time. The author doesn’t think the principal conservatives are at all concerned with truth, but he ridicules the current administration’s insistence on sticking with policies that fail; in this sense he compares Obama to Herbert Hoover. He shows that the slightest shift in approach, like the one Jesse Jones brought to the Hoover-created Reconstruction Finance Corporation, can be crucial in reorganizing financial flows. Frank skewers the Koch Brothers and Fox News for shamelessly promoting the interests of those rescued from their own disasters, while opposing bailouts, and shows how Glenn Beck and others have built their media outreach by perverting themes from the 1930s. He also shows the political pressure groups, such as former Republican House Speaker Richard Armey’s Koch-funded 1996

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Freedom Works train their activists on the “leadership secrets of the Communist Party.” Another theme Frank pursues is the trend of the new right leaning on the old left. Where it is all going, he fears, is toward dismantling the remaining social safety net in submission to the dictates of the “free market.”

An insightful, bitingly humorous book.

NEW Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change

Gallagher, Winifred Penguin Press (256 pp.) $25.95 | Jan. 2, 2012 978-1-59420-320-6

A bright look at our fascination with the new and different.

Gallagher (Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, 2009, etc.) examines how we deal with the everincreasing amount of novelty and rate of change in our lives.

Since the 18th century, when the technology of the Industrial Revolution converged with the ideas of the Enlightenment, the new and novel have played a soaring role in Western society. “We already crunch four times more data—e-mail, tweets, searches, music, video, and traditional media—that we did just 30 years ago,” writes the author, “and this deluge shows no signs of slackening.” Given our affinity for novelty, we are in danger of becoming so distracted by trivial yet instantly gratifying new things that we no longer focus selectively on the important things that help us adapt to change. We must learn to manage our neophilia, or affinity for novelty. Drawing on studies and interviews with social scientists and others, the author offers evidence that the brain is actually a “novelty-seeking machine” and that about 25 percent of Westerners of European descent have a gene linked to robust novelty seeking. While the author’s discussion of our penchant for the gratifying novelty of the most trivial matters will be familiar to many readers, she offers many interesting observations: taking a short break during sex and other pleasurable activities allows you to re-experience the activity’s novel delights, and society strongly influences whether neophilia is a vice or a virtue (with early Christianity discouraging an enquiring mind, and the Age of Reason encouraging it). The information age, begun in the 1960s, brought better, easier access to more kinds of data; the digital revolution has taken the novelty boom up a notch, leaving many chronically distracted and less able to engage in deep thought. Gallagher points to the age-old remedy of moderation and notes neophilia will undoubtedly prove valuable in a future where the only certainly is constant change.

Engaging and cautionary. (Agent: Kris Dahl)

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SILVER LIKE DUST One Family’s Story of America’s Japanese Internment Grant, Kimi Cunningham Pegasus (324 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 15, 2012 978-1-60598-272-4

In her debut, Grant (English/Penn State Univ.) teases out the story of her Japanese grandmother’s internment dur-

ing World War II. The author weaves rich supporting material throughout the narrative, providing a solid context for the relocation and internment of 112,000 Japanese throughout the West. For much of the book, Grant coaxes recollections from her grandmother Obaachan, “prying information from her that she prefers to keep herself.” After being wrenched from their San Francisco home shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Grant’s family was sent to a relocation camp in California, where her grandparents met and courted, walking the Pomona fairgrounds that served as their initial internment camp. Later relocated to Heart Mountain, Wyo., they continued their relationship, married and raised their first child. Grant offers a chronicle of daily life in the camps, with its unfamiliar American food, lack of privacy and modesty, baby gifts from the Quakers, intense cold and craft classes to help pass the time. The Japanese concept of shikataganai—surrendering to whatever fate lies ahead—pervaded the culture of the camps, fostering despair and listlessness.

This is also the story of a young woman navigating her marriage to a strong but exacting personality and family ties weakened by the stress and separation of internment. Eventually the couple left Wyoming for a chance to work in a food-processing plant in New Jersey, where they settled in and quietly absorbed the shame of their incarceration.

Well-written book about life in a Japanese internment camp and the social and political forces that allowed their existence—though Obaachan’s reticence subdues the emotional intensity of the story.

GEORGE & HILLY Anatomy of a Relationship Gurley, George Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-4391-6544-7

An offbeat memoir of a quirky writer and his life with his fiancée.

Journalist Gurley describes himself at various times as “neurotic, obsessive-compulsive [and] infantile-arrested” in this strange memoir of the six-plus years leading to his engagement to his girlfriend/fiancée, Hilly. In a series of therapy sessions with a Dr. Selman, Gurley and Hilly expose |

their foibles to each other, from their first sexual encounters to their heavy drinking to their inability to handle money and debt. Fearful of becoming one of the “castrati”—Gurley’s interpretation of a married man—he does everything possible to avoid change, including late nights at the bar, chasing other women and “infantile rages and apocalyptic phobias.” Although he refers to himself as a “kind of postmodern troll, like one of the fiends that chase you in dreams,” Gurley does exhibit love and compassion toward Hilly, who is also portrayed with all her flaws. Despite his initial inability to commit, his anger and his self-absorption, Hilly remained a loyal partner, slowly wheedling away at Gurley’s will to remain single. At times amusing, Gurley’s stories may offend some readers with references to marriage as a “lifetime prison sentence, a ball and chain” and comments that blatantly objectify women as sex objects. Even taken as a parody of a couple in love, readers may shake their heads in unison with Dr. Selman, wondering why these two people stayed together through all their troubles.

A farcical tale of two people loaded with emotional baggage who still manage to make their relationship work.

STONE OF KINGS In Search of the Lost Jade of the Maya Helferich, Gerard Lyons Press (304 pp.) $24.95 | Dec. 6, 2011 978-0-7627-6351-1

Fusion of geological treatise and adventure yarn, exploring the mysteries of Central American jade.

During his research about explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Helferich (Humboldt’s Cosmos, 2005, etc.) learned about jade’s importance to pre-Columbian societies: “To peoples such as the Maya, jade was not only heartbreakingly beautiful but supremely powerful.” Over time, archaeological expeditions revealed a trail of discoveries that proved the Mesoamericans used jade to create objects for every purpose, and even considered it to have mystical powers. Yet the sources of the mineral remained lost. Through much of the 20th century, adventurers like Edward Thompson, who recovered more than 5,000 jades from a sacred Mayan well in 1909, added to the historical record while shamelessly shipping their finds off to sponsors and museums like the Peabody, without solving this fundamental mystery. In the early 1970s, an American speculator named Jay Ridinger impulsively relocated to San Miguel, Mexico, and became intrigued by the idea of searching for jade. Ridinger would be credited with the revival of the Central American jade industry, although for years it appeared a fool’s errand, especially considering that only certain types of Asian jade were then considered valuable. (Helferich notes that in both Olmec and Chinese cultures, jade “was considered nothing less than virtue incarnate.”) In Guatemala, Ridinger and his prospecting partner (who eventually became his wife, and continues to run their business) were regarded as “idiotas,

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outlandish but harmless”—until they found a jade deposit near the Motagua River and purchased the surrounding acreage.

Despite numerous setbacks, including the threat of civil war, the Ridingers eventually established a business, creating new carvings that represented jade’s “deep history and its ties to the great civilizations of the past.” Helferich delivers a lively narrative, notwithstanding passages focused on the scientific minutiae underlying the Ridingers’ improbable success.

Engaging cross-cultural tale of ancient peoples and modern desires. (Agent: Deirdre Mullane)

WINE TO WATER A Bartender’s Quest to Bring Clean Water to the World

Hendley, Doc Avery (288 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 12, 2012 978-1-58333-462-1

The founder of the nonprofit organization Wine to Water gives a highly personal account of how he came to that mission and of the work that it is doing today.

The organization, which raises awareness of the need for clean water around the world and helps to provide that water to people in need, began as an idea in the head of a young man with a talent for connecting with people and a growing awareness of the world’s water problems. A biker, bartender and amateur musician with no apparent goal in life, Hendley organized a wine tasting as a fundraiser for clean-water projects and shortly thereafter found himself in contact with Samaritan’s Purse, an international charitable organization. That meeting led to a job in Darfur, where he built up a team that delivered water and repaired wells in villages devastated by the genocidal attacks. The author’s down-to-earth accounts of his time there in 2004 and 2005 are interspersed with on-the-spot e-mail updates to friends, family and supervisors. His frustrations and the psychological impact of his observations and harrowing experiences are clear. On his return to the United States, Hendley married and took a mundane office job but never stopped trying to get Wine to Water up and running.

With a colleague from his Darfur year, he succeeded, and through their grassroots network they began to spread their wings, undertaking water projects around the world. Although he describes several projects in India and Africa, he gives greatest attention to his work in post-earthquake Haiti, where he put to good use his knowledge of how to cut through red tape and get things done. Hendley’s well-told story—at times a bit aw-shucks, down-homey in tone—demonstrates how one person can impact the lives of many.

Though not written specifically for teenage boys, it would make a great gift for a too-cool-for-school kid.

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THAT’S DISGUSTING Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion

Herz, Rachel Norton (288 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 23, 2012 978-0-393-07647-9

Herz (Psychology/Brown Univ.; The Scent of Desire, 2007) examines the strange world of disgust and discovers that, to a large extent, it’s all in the mind of the beholder.

“The emotion of disgust is universal,” writes the author, “but it is not innate; disgust has to be learned and is subject to a myriad of influences.” If the most elemental purpose of disgust is to engender an avoidance of rotten and toxic food, it mostly arises from our cultural heritage and those pockets of the brain that remind us of our mortality and animalistic selves. Herz closely hews to current research on disgust, but she also salts the narrative with anecdotal material and intriguing vignettes, which gives the book a high entertainment factor as she wades through the scientific matter.

The author tackles aspects of both physical and moral disgust and convincingly finds in them a protective impulse—”disgust is a type of fear—a special type of fear that evolved to help us evade a slow and uncertain death by disease.” Moral disgust is a more slippery character, with all the illogical reasons we deploy to find something immoral, though Herz suggests that moral repulsion isn’t only a threat: “More abstractly, but just as ominous, being around the badness of immoral people might sully your inner, spiritual self or soul.” She touches down on food and lust, self-empathy and how disgust piques our curiosity of that ultimate mystery, death. Finally, she notes that disgust is a luxury, an embarrassment of our riches: When survival is at stake, we will eat anything, mate with anyone and enlist anyone’s support.

“The greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust,” said Cicero. In this multifaceted book, Herz expertly walks that tightrope. (9 illustrations)

CHEATING JUSTICE How Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law, Plotted to Avoid Prosecution, and What We Can Do About It

Holtzman, Elizabeth & Cooper, Cynthia L. Beacon (224 pp.) $26.95 | Feb. 7, 2012 978-0-8070-0321-3 978-0-8070-0322-0 e-book

A searing indictment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their betrayal of the American people.

Holtzman, who served on the House Judiciary Committee during the proceedings against Richard Nixon, and lawyer/journalist Cooper (The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens, 2006, etc.) explain why and how Bush and

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Cheney should be charged with crimes against the nation and convicted by a judge, jury or Congress—or all of the above. Their indictment is grounded in specific laws, which they ably explain for a non-lawyer readership. These include the False Statements Accountability Act of 1996 and Title 18, Section 371 of the U.S. Code, which sets out the parameters of conspiracy to defraud the United States through deceit. The authors duly cover the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the torture of arrestees during the so-called War on Terror and the wiretapping of American citizens. In addition to explaining why Bush and Cheney should be prosecuted in the United States, the authors set out the argument for governments of other nations to prosecute the former president and vice president. Without prosecutions at home and abroad, Holtzman and Cooper write, the rule of the law is meaningless. For the most part, the authors avoid discussion about the likelihood of Bush and Cheney being held accountable in court, and common sense suggests that with each passing year, such prosecutions become increasingly unlikely. However, Holtzman and Cooper note two groups that faced trial decades after their transgressions: civilrights violators and Nazi war criminals.

A passionate book grounded in law.

MR. AND MRS. MADISON’S WAR America’s First Couple and the Second War of Independence Howard, Hugh Bloomsbury (384 pp.) $30.00 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-1-60819-071-3

Numerous books have cast almost too much light on the “unknown” War of 1812, so historian Howard (The Painter’s Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art, 2009, etc.) take a different tack, writing largely from the point of view of President Madison and Dolley, the nation’s most popular first lady before Eleanor Roosevelt.

The author delivers a skillful history of the war itself, launched after five years of frustration at British seizure of American merchant vessels and impressment of sailors. The chief goal the American army was the conquest of Canada, which failed disastrously despite several attempts. The goal of the navy was damaging British commerce. This succeeded notwithstanding the distraction of a handful of minor but spectacular American naval triumphs, which did not prevent the immense Royal Navy from blockading our coast, damaging American commerce even more. Mostly the war was a threeyear litany of inept generals, wrong-headed politicians and a sprinkling of heroes (Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Oliver Hazard Perry), whose victories made little difference in the war’s outcome. British and American historians agree that it was a draw; ironically, Canadians consider that they won. Britain never agreed to stop seizures and impressment, but winning the Napoleonic wars made that moot. Dolley’s contributions to |

waging the war were minimal, but Howard provides illuminating asides about her activities as Washington’s premier hostess and a far more colorful correspondent than her husband.

An entertaining portrait of the era’s first couple and the social life of the young nation’s elite. (East Coast author appearances)

ALL THERE IS Love Stories from StoryCorps

Isay, Dave Penguin Press (176 pp.) $24.95 | Feb. 6, 2012 978-1-59420-321-3

A brief compilation of true love stories pulled from the StoryCorps oral history project.

Peabody and MacArthur winner Isay (Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps, 2010, etc.) presents readers with another compelling collection of stories centered on love and marriage. In more than 30 touching personal accounts, interviewees talk of falling in love, remembering a lost loved one or finding love when they felt it was no longer possible to love or be loved. Covering long-term relationships and newlyweds, gay and straight partners and long-distance interracial bonds formed via e-mails and letters, the devotion to another person continues despite wars, illness and death. A look, a touch, a smile, the color of someone’s hair—these are the tiny details that we remember because “love is all there is…when you take your last breath you remember the people you love, how much love you inspired, and how much love you gave.” Full of warmth and affection, friendship and tenderness, the overall feeling of the collection is summed up by contributor Sonya, who states, “there’s nobody I’d rather travel through life with than you.” These stories, writes Isay, “speak to the enduring and redemptive power of love…In a culture that often feels consumed by all that’s phony or famous, these stories give me hope.”

More stories would have been welcome, but these myriad forms of love will provoke readers to contemplate their own love lives with a new sense of depth.

SCARED SICK The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease

Karr-Morse, Robin with Wiley, Meredith S. Basic (320 pp.) $26.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-465-01354-8

Investigation of the importance of attachment between baby and caretaker—usually the mother—in setting the path to physical and mental health.

In a follow-up to their Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence (1998), family therapist Karr-Morse and Wiley, state

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director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids in New York, write that without that bond, there is danger that a baby will be stressed, triggering the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and flooding the baby’s developing nervous system with flight-or-fight hormones.

The baby, unable to flee or fight, may succumb to trauma, defined as being frozen in fear. Such trauma is the root of being “scared sick”: suffering ills that may not appear until later in life. Among many others, these can include autism, Alzheimer’s, addiction, ADHD, schizophrenia, PTSD, suicide, chronic pain, obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The authors look at scores of surveys, correlations, retrospective analyses, animal studies and expert opinions, laced with dramatic statistics. They do not ignore poverty, nutrition, illness, injury or other negative risk factors, but the first half of the book is such an overwhelming recital of trauma’s legacy that it may arouse skepticism in some facts. To be sure, infancy and toddlerhood are critical times in development, and the authors are solidly in the line of such pioneers as John Bowlby and Harry Harlow. Karr-Morse and Wiley shore up their thesis with a chapter indicating that in infancy the more emotional right brain develops at a faster rate than the left, as well as a chapter on epigenetics to explain how trauma may reset which genes are turned off or on. Finally, the authors provide an array of therapies and resources to ameliorate the effects of trauma, most involving some physical actions and establishing trust with the therapist.

A wake-up call? Absolutely. Readers don’t need to buy all the data to get the message, especially where events in America and abroad conspire to increase child poverty and deprivation.

GOING SOLO The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone Klinenberg, Eric Penguin Press (288 pp.) $27.95 | Feb. 6, 2012 978-1-59420-322-0

Klinenberg (Sociology/New York Univ.; Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media, 2007, etc.) explores why “more than 50 percent of American adults are single”—and why the usually prefer to live that way.

Solo living appears to be a global phenomenon that has skyrocketed over the past decade. The author examines both ends of the age spectrum in an attempt to understand the social implication of this trend. He finds that among relatively affluent young adults in the 25-to-34 age bracket, living solo is seen as a rite of passage into adulthood—a period allowing more sexual freedom, a chance to explore relationships without commitment and a major focus on career building. A similar increase in solitary living is becoming the norm among the elderly, where one in three people over 65 live alone—compared to one in 10 in 1950. This book is an outgrowth of a study conducted by Klinenberg following the publication of his book Heat Wave (2003), which investigated the tragic deaths of senior citizens during the extraordinary heat wave in Chicago in 1995. Interviewing 2000

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elderly Manhattan residents who live alone, the author found that they preferred this to dependence on their children because of their strong belief in self-reliance. They reject the alternative of assisted living as prohibitively expensive and deplore the conditions in most nursing homes. Klinenberg suggests that public support is needed to provide affordable, urban assisted-living facilities in which the elderly can maintain their independence for as long as possible.

An optimistic look at shifting social priorities that need not threaten our fundamental values. (Agent: Tina Bennett)

HANNIBAL AND ME What History’s Greatest Military Strategist Can Teach Us About Success and Failure

Kluth, Andreas Riverhead (336 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 5, 2012 978-1-59448-812-2

Economist writer Kluth takes lessons from the great military strategist and other historical titans in his quest for fulfillment beyond success.

In 218 BCE, Hannibal and his army surprised the Romans by crossing the Alps to attack Italy by land. The author narrates Hannibal’s story with precision, but his analysis extends beyond the highlights of the battlefield. In this retelling of the ancient drama, the major players become archetypes whose motivations, triumphs and failures mirror those of more recent historical figures. The influence of Carl Jung pervades as the narrative as Kluth digs into their psyches—examples include author Amy Tan’s teenage rebellion, Eleanor Roosevelt’s loneliness and Albert Einstein’s dark side—to create a plausible formula for surviving disaster or even sudden, explosive success. Though brief, the contemporary examples bridge the gap between modern readers and the ancient world. Kluth’s own connection to Hannibal is tenuous, explained with a brief recap of how he took off his expensive tie and left London’s Wall Street to become a journalist. But his desire for a balanced life (and European disdain for ostentation) makes his voice unique among others who analyze the nuances of greatness.

Kluth follows each character beyond the key moments that defined their places in history to determine the value of their lives as a whole, from the rise and fall of their careers to their evolving relationships with families and friends. The result is a study of the ephemeral nature of power that grapples, often very effectively, with the meaning of true happiness.

Meatier than the average self-help book, Hannibal and Me is a rare blend of military strategy and emotional intelligence that offers a more mature solution for winning life’s battles.

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“A thoughtful, challenging book—but not for the faint of heart or those not willing to read carefully.” from a universe from nothing

THE FAVORED DAUGHTER One Woman’s Fight to Lead Afghanistan Into the Future Koofi, Fawzia with Gourhi, Nadene Palgrave Macmillan (272 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-230-12067-9

An affecting inside look at the making of an Afghan woman leader, in spite of the repression by traditional Islamic society and the Taliban.

As her father’s 19th child out of a total of 23, and to his second wife out of eight, Koofi learned from an early age that girls were valued very little in the harsh, mountainous, rural Badakhshan province of Afghanistan, where her father was a tribal leader and member of Parliament. In 1978, when Koofi was nearly four, her father was shot by the mujahideen, forcing the author, her mother and other relatives to flee and take refuge with her older brothers. Eventually her mother allowed her to go to school, the first girl in her family to do so. Koofi studied medicine as civil war tore apart the country. With the arrival of the Taliban in 1996, the author’s dreams of going to medical school were eclipsed. Her brother, the chief of police, went into hiding, and her own new husband was periodically imprisoned. “No more progression,” she writes of this desperate period, “only the darkness of the uneducated men who now ruled our land.” Returned to the safety of her home province, her husband dying of tuberculosis and her two young daughters needing care, Koofi gravitated toward teaching English and community-outreach work. By 2003, with the Taliban gone and hope restored in her country, she garnered the support of her male family members to be the one to represent her district in the new Afghan Parliament. Her election and success fighting corruption and promoting women’s issues have set her up as a presidential contender—and a strong leader to watch. In her final chapter, the author offers advice for the international powers overseeing her war-town nation—e.g., do not withdraw “before the job is finished.”

With moving letters to her daughters opening each chapter, Koofi delivers an important message.

A UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

Krauss, Lawrence M. Free Press (256 pp.) $24.99 | Jan. 10, 2012 978-1-4516-2445-8

Theologians of all religions know how the universe arose. Scientists traditionally considered this a metaphysical question outside their purview, but theoretical physicist Krauss (Director of the Origins Project/Arizona State Univ.; Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science, 2011, etc.) asserts that |

laws of physics not only permit something to arise from nothing, they may guarantee it.

The author delivers plenty of jolts in this enthusiastic and lucid but demanding overview of the universe, which includes plenty of mysteries—but its origin isn’t among them. Einstein’s relativity proves that empty space can curve, and quantum physics does not forbid matter from appearing out of nowhere provided it also vanishes almost immediately. In the odd, entirely statistical world of quantum physics, whatever is not forbidden can happen and experiments reveal “virtual particles” popping in and out of existence everywhere. These quantum fluctuations were occurring before the dawn of time. All were thought to have quickly disappeared, but perhaps under the right conditions one lived sufficiently long to give rise to the seminal event of the early universe: inflation. Thereafter, the original tiny volume expanded by an enormous factor to produce our universe.

Krauss recounts its history and structure, emphasizing recent discoveries that vastly increased both our knowledge and ignorance. It turns out only one percent of the universe consists of familiar matter and energy; the rest is a mystery. Also, a grim future awaits us, although that lies a trillion or so years ahead.

A thoughtful, challenging book—but not for the faint of heart or those not willing to read carefully.

GHOSTS OF EMPIRE Britain’s Legacy in the Modern World

Kwarteng, Kwasi PublicAffairs (480 pp.) $29.99 | Feb. 7, 2012 978-1-61039-120-7

Perhaps the sun has not quite set on the British Empire.

That’s the premise of Kwarteng’s fascinating debut about the long-term and far-reaching effects of British rule. As the son of Ghanaian immigrants to London, educated at Eton and Cambridge, his views encompass the attitudes of both rulers and the ruled. He supports his statement that “instability in the world is a product of [the British Empire’s] legacy of individualism and haphazard policy making” with both fact and logical hypotheses. There never was an imperial strategic plan, he writes, nor directives to those who ruled.

“Encourage trade” was the only directive. There were few, if any, instances of policy reversal by London. Colonial leaders ruled as judges, lawgivers and police with no oversight. Most administrators of British colonies followed the principal of masterly inactivity. Decisions made by one colonial ruler would often be overturned by the next one. Tribal leaders, indigenous administrators and monarchs appointed by the English ruled without interference, some wisely, most autocratically to the detriment of the population. Most of these countries continue to struggle to find their own identity. Kwarteng maintains that those who served the empire were not appointed because of their class, but their education and their athletic ability. The Duke of Wellington put it best when he said, “The battle of Waterloo was won

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Jack Kennedy:

Elusive Hero Chris Matthews Simon & Schuster (496 pp.) $27.50 Nov. 1, 2011 978-1-4516-3508-9

q & a w i t h m at t h e w s

Chris Mat thews is well known for his stints on TV news as a political commentator for MSNBC and the host of the NBC news program The Chris Matthews Show. Politics runs in his blood. In addition to working as a political journalist, he has served as a police officer on Capitol Hill, a staffer to Tip O’Neill and a speechwriter to Jimmy Carter, among many other jobs inside the Beltway.

Matthews can add storytelling to his list of gigs. In Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, he revels in his accomplished gift of gab and well-timed blarney that enlivens the pages of this personal portrait of John F. Kennedy—which, he says happily, captures “the Irish thing, the class thing, the Harvard thing, the whole package.”

We spoke with Matthews from NBC’s bureau in Washington, D.C., about the new book and his future projects.

Q: It’s been said that apart from Abraham Lincoln and the Founders, more books have been devoted to John F. Kennedy than any other president. How did you go about making your book different from all the others in that vast library?

Q: A striking motif in your book is Kennedy’s intellectualism, his constant reading. Yet the image is widespread of Kennedy as being rather insubstantial. Why is that?

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Q: Having gathered so much detail about his life, so many anecdotes and recollections, what single moment do you think is most revealing of who Jack Kennedy was?

A: Kennedy was irascible. And he was great to be around. But he was also able to distance himself from his own emotions and the emotions of others. I tell a story about him meeting with a friend of his and that friend’s wife. The two were about to get divorced, and you could see it in their faces. JFK looked at them and said, “The agony and the ecstasy!” That wit, detachment and a kind of coldness all at once speak to his ability to distance himself from his own emotion.

That turned out to be very important at Kennedy’s worst moment, the Bay of Pigs. The Russians had soldiers and missiles ready to go. Khrushchev even reserved the last missiles for New York City in case the U.S. tried an invasion. Kennedy’s generals, such as Curtis LeMay, were urging him to go in. Kennedy drew himself back from all the heated talk and decided, “I’m not going to have a nuclear war over this. I’m not going to start World War III.” That was his greatest strength, I think. He had to make a deal, and he had to do it against all of the emotions around him.

Of course, this disconnect would make it impossible to have him as a marital partner. I think it all goes back to that sick, lonely youth.

He was an interesting guy. He’s still an interesting guy.

Q: Now that you’ve written about Jack Kennedy, is there any other biographical subject beckoning to you?

A: Part of me wants to write something about Ernest Hemingway. I’m not a literary critic. I’m looking more at the giant shadow Hemingway cast, his role as the arbiter of what was cool. And then there’s Churchill, another fascinating character. You’ve got to find the spine of a book, that thing that no one else has gotten to.

–By Gregory McNamee

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p hoto c o urt e sy ms n b c

A: I wrote Kennedy and Nixon back in 1996, about those friends who became rivals, and one of the things I did there was to try to talk with the people who were closest to them. I made a lot of progress with people such as Billy Sutton and Mark Dalton, early on in Kennedy’s political career, and interviewed people like Chuck Spaulding, his close friend, and Charlie Bartlett, who introduced him to Jackie. I got close to Nixon’s people, too.

I had a lot of the groundwork done, and I was able to use that to do a different kind of biography, a kind of bildungsroman. I love Jon Meacham’s book Franklin and Winston, and I decided to apply that intimate approach to Jack Kennedy’s life. What I wanted to do, again, was to get up close to people who themselves knew Kennedy up close, day to day, and learn from them what he was like. So I was able to write a book based on people I came to know and trust—not drive-by witnesses, but people who had spent many, many years in Kennedy’s company.

I also did a lot of archival work, listening to tapes, examining handwritten notes.

We all know the pictures of Jack and Jackie, those beautiful people. I think they’re distractions.

I wanted to get at what he was really like. He was a very thoughtful, very cautious man, very compartmentalized, very careful to separate one relationship from another.

A: I think he came across that way to some people—like Tip O’Neill. I worked for him for six years, and I have memories of O’Neill and the old guys dismissing him as a good-looking guy with a lot of girlfriends. Jack Kennedy didn’t betray who he really was to a lot of people. I write about the two Jacks: the good-time Charlie and the sick kid who was lonely and who was always thinking about war and death, pretty gothic. That sick kid, that other guy didn’t get exposed very often.

Jackie was also dismissed as someone who was just guarding the flame, but she understood him deeply in that way, as someone who was a public charmer but went to bed thinking hard and worrying about things.

The bifurcation, the duality—she was able to see all of that, the deep and the superficial.

on the playing field of Eton.” The author insists that it wasn’t a class-oriented society, but the majority of those who served in the colonies first went to one of the best public schools, preferably Eton, and subsequently studied classics at Oxford or Cambridge. The hierarchical society in the colonies was far more restrictive than any found in England, even though it too was based not on money but on education and status. Rule was serendipitous, and the locals were effectively ignored and left to their own devices—as long as they didn’t interrupt trade.

Kwarteng effectively illustrates the effects of empire in a forceful and thorough book that holds important lessons for today’s leaders—in particular that the cost of invading and occupying a country always exceeds expectations.

THE SOUTHERN TIGER Chile’s Fight for a Democratic and Prosperous Future

Lagos, Ricardo with Hounshell, Blake and Dickinson, Elizabeth Palgrave Macmillan (256 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-230-33816-6

Former Chilean president Lagos lucidly recounts the extraordinary efforts to end the Pinochet dictatorship and lead the country to truth and reckoning.

The author was a protégé and colleague of Salvador Allende, the socialist president of Chile who was just three years into his term when a CIA-backed coup led by Pinochet precipitated Allende’s suicide during the storming of the presidential palace in 1973. Lagos was brought up in middle-class Santiago by his pianist and teacher mother; he was educated in left-wing politics and economics in the mid-’50s, and he received his doctorate at Duke University and became an academic. The work during Allende’s administration to render Chile a more just, equal society was shattered by the Pinochet dictatorship, which favored the neoliberal economics theory of the “Chicago Boys,” who advocated open markets and deregulation. Pinochet used economics as his ideological weapon, privatizing, deregulating, arresting labor activists, opening markets and inviting in private investors, thereby creating huge profits for the dictator and his cronies. After the initial economic success (used as a model by Margaret Thatcher and others), the exacerbation of the inequity between rich and poor and the ongoing repression of all opposition began to corrode Chilean society. As a result, Lagos and other idealists attempted to restructure the country’s socialist thought. By the mid-’80s, the Democratic Alliance became the first real challenge to Pinochet and was able to crack the prevailing fear and win the plebiscite in 1988, forcing Pinochet to step down. Because of the truth commissions advocated by Lagos and others, the enormity of Pinochet’s crimes were revealed.

A deeply affecting eyewitness account of a despicable period in Chilean history.

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AFTER THE FALL The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent Laqueur, Walter Dunne/St. Martin’s (336 pp.) $26.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-250-00008-8

Laqueur (Harvest of a Decade: Disraelia and Other Essays, 2011, etc.), the chairman of the International Research Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, draws on past history and current insight to present a profile of the current European crisis.

The author is more concerned with broader questions of demography and culture, assimilation of immigrants and new approaches to education and social policy than to questions of political and economic integration. Noting that the continent is at a turning point, he writes that an aging population is not reproducing in sufficient numbers to secure its future and has not been for most of the past century. The second- and third-generation immigrants are not sufficiently qualified to maintain the technical and scientific levels of expertise have characterized European production and living standards.

Laqueur emphasizes the importance of finding new methods of assimilating immigrant populations, and he does not agree with the view that Islam is one of the principal problems. He specifies the circumstances of their immigration and provides detailed observations of current social activities to show the particular problems that immigrants bring with them from their countries of origin, and how current policies in education and religion have succeeded or failed. Given the reality that Russia is facing the same kinds of problems and that immigration is a concern in the U.S., whatever solutions are found will be globally significant.

A clear guide to understanding and solving a profound set of problems.

THE NEW NEW RULES A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass Maher, Bill Blue Rider Press (368 pp.) $26.95 | Nov. 14, 2011 978-0-399-15841-4

Less an actual book than a return to the print-media platform by a brand most familiar from television.

“It’s a joke book,” admits Maher of this sequel to New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (2005). As an alphabetized collection of bits from his “New Rules” TV segments (though some never aired), this book is meatier than a collection of top-10 lists from another TV brand. Yet the author acknowledges that he

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deserves credit neither for the concept (his program’s head writer conceived “New Rules” as a running feature) or for “so many of the jokes in this book” (he has staff writers for that). Consequently, the book is a compilation of TV bits that have aired since the last compilation (which means some might be six years old) and some that didn’t make the airtime cut for a variety of reasons, aimed at dedicated Maher fans who want all their favorites in one volume or at those who enjoy Maher when they see him but want to see how much they’ve missed. Example: “New Rule: The White House doesn’t have to release the dead Bin Laden photos, but don’t pretend we can’t take it. We’ve seen pictures of Britney Spears’s vagina getting out of a car. Television has desensitized us to violence, and porn has desensitized us to people getting shot in the eye.” Though Maher’s perspective on celebrity culture, marijuana, masturbation and China will be familiar to fans, some of the longer (rarely longer than a page and a half), more ambitious pieces reflect the sensibility he shares with Jon Stewart, with a cutting-edge humor that slices through journalistic hypocrisy—e.g., “We don’t need a third party, we need a first party. This is because we don’t have a left and a right party in this country anymore. We have a center-right party and a crazy party. Over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital.”

Funny stuff for TV viewers with short attention spans.

GUITAR ZERO The New Musician and the Science of Learning Marcus, Gary Penguin Press (288 pp.) $25.95 | Jan. 23, 2012 978-1-59420-317-6

To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, can a 38-year-old tone-deaf professor of cognitive psychology get a guitar and learn how to make it talk?

That’s the question Marcus (Psychology/New York Univ.; Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, 2008, etc.) asked himself a few years ago, and this intelligent, educational and exuberant book is his answer. Marcus approached his lifelong dream from both a personal and professional level; he wanted to play, but he also wanted to challenge the “critical periods” theory of learning, which suggests that you should learn music early or not at all. The author threw himself into mastering his ax, pushing the limits to see just how far a new trick could take an old dog. In the process, he explores how the senses reorganize to adapt to new information and investigates where music comes from, what evolutionary function (if any) it serves and why some people have rhythm and others don’t. Marcus asks eternal questions on which the jury is still out: Where does talent come from? How far will sheer hard work take you?

Why are there countless obsessive, 24/7 guitarists, but there’s only been one Jimi Hendrix? Why do the most dedicated composers of rock and pop songs fall far short of what Bob Dylan or the Beatles accomplished in their 20s? Is it genetic? Nature or 2004

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nurture? The author sought opinions and advice from people across the music world—e.g., jazz impresario Pat Metheny and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine—and even attended rock-band camp, humbling himself to audition for a band of 11-year-olds who needed someone on bass.

Whether or not readers (aging or otherwise) will profit by the author’s example, this enjoyable blend of music appreciation, science and personal exploration commands a new respect for how the brain and body responds to the promise, and shock, of the new.

DECEMBER 1941

Mawdsley, Evan Yale Univ. (336 pp.) $30.00 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-0-300-15445-0

Suspenseful chronicle of the 12 days in December 1941 that would define the perimeters of the global conflagration.

Mawdsley (Professorial Research Fellow/Univ. of Glasgow; World War II: A New History, 2009, etc.) embarks on the action from the first day and never lets up in this crisp, chronological study—from the Japanese Imperial Conference’s ratification of war on Dec. 1 against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands, setting in motion the Southern Operation invasion, to Germany’s declaration of war on the U.S. on the 11th. In between, Hitler’s lightning thrust into the Soviet Union was now mired in mud and the approaching winter. In Libya, the British under General Ritchie were driving General Rommel and his Italian allies back from securing the supply port at Tobruk. Yet the essential crisis at this moment was gathering steam in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands, with the launch of the Japanese invasion convoy on Dec. 4, which struck Malaya and southern Thailand, Singapore, Pearl Harbor, Wake, Guam, the Philippines and Hong Kong. Mawdsley has an excellent grip on the behind-the-scenes political and diplomatic scurrying among London, Washington, Berlin and Tokyo, much of it desperate and, to readers in hindsight, smugly blinkered, as Japan’s hostile intentions were not hidden and the Allies had broken the Japanese encryption in 1940. Crucial code warnings received by U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark were not delivered to the Pacific commanders in time. Pearl Harbor brought America into the war, bolstering Britain and turning the tide. Hitler announced in a Dec. 12 speech his resolve to “clear the table” of the Jews; a week later he had taken direct command of the German Army.

A rigorous, sharp survey of this decisive moment in the war.

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“Snappily if not elegantly written, this well-informed chronicle captures the distinctive nature of winemaking in a country challenged by an unforgiving climate and political and economic instability.” from the vineyard at the end of the world

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A DEMOCRAT

McGovern, George Blue Rider Press (256 pp.) $22.95 | Nov. 10, 2011 978-0-399-15822-3

Almost 40 years after his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency, the liberal Democrat addresses the state of the party, and the state of the country, in what reads like a long stump speech.

Whether embracing the label “bleeding-heart liberal” as “a compliment,” arguing that “the erosion of the American way of life began in 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president” or proclaiming of the Republican “faith in supply-side economics” that “the idea isn’t worth a hoot in a rain barrel,” the former senator from South Dakota isn’t writing to win converts from the conservative wing or even the center. The minister’s son is preaching to the choir, a choir that he fears might be tempted to sacrifice for political pragmatism the ideals he maintains represent the heart of the Democratic Party. “Food and hunger are not partisan issues. They are human issues,” writes McGovern (Abraham Lincoln, 2008, etc.), who believes much the same about education, medical care, jobs, immigration and other issues where he insists that intransigent Republicans are uncompromisingly in the wrong. Though the candidate who ran his own presidential campaign on a peace platform takes issue with the military interventions continued under President Obama, he is less critical of the administration’s attempts at bipartisanship than many liberals have been: “Never during my lifetime have I witnessed any president beset by the narrow partisanship that has plagued President Obama. The American people elected him for his vision—of change, of hope, of compromise…

These ideals have been trampled on by Republicans.” Yet even those who generally align with McGovern’s ideology might find curious his assertion that “I often feel that the federal government is more sensible about spending than I am.” Though the rise of the Tea Party suggests a vocal opposition, McGovern believes that government is our friend—the bigger the better.

A book of heartfelt conviction that will not change a single mind.

THE VINEYARD AT THE END OF THE WORLD Maverick Winemakers and the Rebirth of Malbec

Mount, Ian Norton (288 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 16, 2012 978-0-393-08019-3

Oenophile journalist Mount debuts with a knowledgeable history of the upscale makeover of Argentine wines.

Although wine grapes have been planted in Argentina since the 16th century, the beverage produced for centuries |

was generally cheap, low-quality plonk that only the natives would drink. By the time bodegueros (wine-makers) like Nicolás Catena began trying to upgrade their product in the 1980s, they were also hampered by outdated equipment and methods and unhygienic conditions. Catena and his peers learned from upstart California vintners, who took on the French and won a paradigm-changing 1976 taste test, that it was possible to create high-quality wines outside France. But at first they worked with Chardonnay and Cabernet grapes, wanting to improve Argentina’s image with the type of wines everyone considered the best. The humble Malbec grape, almost extinct in its native France but doing well for centuries in Argentina’s warmer, sunnier climate, was disdained as coarse and heavy. Yet once Argentina’s bodegueros had modernized their facilities and methods to gain a foothold in the international market for fine wines, it was Malbec that gave put them over the top with “a world-class wine—wine that had a sense of place, of terroir.” In Mount’s savvy recounting, Malbec and the U.S. fine-wine market grew up together; the wine’s fruity quality suited American consumers, who were also attracted by its high value-for-money ratio. But many of the American winemakers who rushed into Argentina in the ‘90s, thinking they could duplicate the locals’ success, came to grief over their inability to deal with local business practices, most spectacularly California’s Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates. Mount skillfully interweaves multiple story lines and personalities, including foreign consultants like Frenchman Michel Rolland and American Paul Hobbs.

Snappily if not elegantly written, this well-informed chronicle captures the distinctive nature of winemaking in a country challenged by an unforgiving climate and political and economic instability. (12 illustrations; map)

GOD’S JURY The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World

Murphy, Cullen Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (320 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-0-618-09156-0

A roving Vanity Fair journalist takes a swaggering stab at the Inquisition.

There were many Inquisitions—also lowercased—and inquiring author Murphy (Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, 2007, etc.) traces the tentacles of the righteous persecution of “heretical depravity” up to the present, when the fallout from 9/11 especially reawakened the urge for surveillance, censorship, torture and a general “us versus them” mentality. The author first explores the three institutions that bore the name: the Medieval Inquisition, put into effect in 1231 by Pope Gregory IX in order to quash the heretical Cathars in southern France; the Spanish Inquisition, launched

by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1478; and the Roman Inquisition, taken up with relish under Pope Paul III, in 1542,

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and intended to stop the dissemination of heretical thought and print. While the persecution of the Cathars lasted only a century and was completely successful (“Have you ever met a Cathar?”), the Spanish Inquisition perfected the art of torture under Tomás de Torquemada, culminating in the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain and the spread of global inquisition to the Americas. The Roman Inquisition had to stem the flood of Reformation ideas pouring out of the new printing presses, resulting in a massive buildup of archives that have only been opened to visiting scholars since 1998. The Holy Office would be the relentless persecutor of scientists and free thinkers, from Galileo to Graham Greene. Murphy visits the modern incarnation of the Vatican’s inquisition, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1981 onward, which decrees on matters of cloning, same-sex marriage, etc.

Entertaining, lively chronicle of the Inquisition, touching on a wide variety of issues across the centuries. (Author tour to New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia)

THE ACCORDION FAMILY Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition Newman, Katherine S. Beacon (320 pp.) $25.95 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-0-8070-0743-3

A look at the impact of globalization on young people finds intriguing differences in family relationships and living patterns in selected countries around the around.

A sociologist who has written widely on poverty and the working poor (The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America, 2007, etc.), Newman (dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University) interviewed some 300 families in the United States, Italy, Spain, Japan, Denmark and Sweden to assess this impact. She found that global competition has had a profound effect on young adults in the West and in Japan who find themselves facing extended unemployment, forcing many to live at home with their parents. The resulting formation of multigenerational households, or “accordion families,” is a phenomenon that intrigues Newman, and her interviews reveal significant differences in how it is regarded in different societies. In addition to the personal stories, the author provides charts and tables that starkly illustrate the changes. In Japan, parents with adult children in the household tend to blame themselves for their grown offspring’s failure to launch, whereas Spanish parents tend to blame the government for abandoning the young generation to economic forces. Italian parents take a much more positive view, welcoming the presence of live-in adult children. In the United States, parents seem willing to house and support adult children if they are working for advanced degrees or at unpaid internships that will further a professional career. The most striking difference, however, is in the Scandinavian countries, where strong welfare 2006

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systems support the independence of young people with subsidized housing, free education and unemployment insurance.

A consequence of delayed adulthood is that the young are not marrying and producing the next generation, a problem especially severe in Japan. Newman sees three possible solutions: increasing immigration, increasing taxes to maintain a safety net for an aging population or cutting back on the safety net.

Clear presentation of a growing problem, its causes and consequences and the choices societies make. (Agent: Lisa Adams)

GOOD IN A CRISIS A Memoir Overton, Margaret Bloomsbury (256 pp.) $24.00 | Feb. 1, 2012 978-1-60819-764-4

When Chicago anesthesiologist and debut memoirist Overton turned 44, her world turned permanently and irrevocably upside-down.

The “perfect” life and marriage that she had built with her occasionally philandering physician husband over 20 years came to a jarring end. In a haze of confusion, Overton began her grimly hilarious journey into the Heart of Darkness “craziness” that came to define her new reality. Naïvely assuming that she “would move from one marriage into another, or at least into another committed relationship,” the author sought companionship with men she met through online dating services. What she found was a nightmare: If the men didn’t mention or reveal a “propensity to dump women after a month” or openly discuss problems with physical ailments including erectile dysfunction, they were freakishly quirky—and sometimes downright dangerous—obsessives who believed that gifts from Victoria’s Secret were every woman’s fantasy. As Overton stumbled through the midlife dating jungle, her body betrayed her with a life-threatening aneurysm that she became aware of during an abortive sexual encounter.

She survived this with her own mortality but found that others—from her best friend to her mother to her own daughter—did not, or emerged physically and/or emotionally scarred.

If not for Overton’s singular determination to highlight the humorous and learn from the apocalyptic events that overtook her in middle age, the narrative would read like an embittered litany of yet another angry divorcée. Growing older may be difficult, she writes, but surviving the inevitable traumas of later life may offer passage to the enlightened state of being that “sounds more appealing than dotage.”

At times brutally funny reading about midlife coming-of-age.

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HEAVEN CRACKS, EARTH SHAKES The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao’s China Palmer, James Basic (288 pp.) $26.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-465-01478-1

A compressed, fast-moving survey of the waning rule of Mao Zedong, precipitated by the horrendous Tangshan earthquake of 1976.

Beijing-based author Palmer (The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia, 2009) efficiently lays out the devastation wrought by 10 years of the Cultural Revolution, and how over the space of a few months the Chinese people managed to rebound and move forward. The year was scarred irrevocably by three events: the death in January of the people’s beloved prime minister Zhou Enlai; the earthquake in Tangshan, which had been predicted several days before yet warnings ignored, flattening the coal-mining town in the space of 23 seconds and killing more than 650,000 people; and Mao’s death in September, which set off a power struggle between the Gang of Four, led by Mao’s widow, Jiang Qing, and the supporters of Deng Xiaoping. Palmer, who speaks Mandarin, conducted extensive interviews with survivors of the era and portrays the state of utter exhaustion and anguish experienced by the Chinese at this late point in the Communist tragedy. The death of Zhou, and the regime’s slight to his memory as perceived by the people in party messages and signs, enraged them, arousing the spark of resistance in demonstrations in Tiananmen Square to vent their grief and anger. Further, in the wake of the earthquake’s devastation, the people were essentially left to their own survival devices, the actual tragedy covered up and their own grief betrayed. Eventually the darkening public mood would find its scapegoat in the Gang of Four.

A riveting précis of the fatal weaknesses in Mao’s dictatorship.

SOPHIE The Incredible True Story of the Castaway Dog Pearse, Emma Da Capo Lifelong/Perseus (320 pp.) $25.00 | Feb. 1, 2012 978-0-7382-1467-2

Journalist Pearse tells the heartwarming lost-and-found tale of Sophie, an Australian blue heeler who became an unwitting castaway on St. Bees, an island off the Queensland coast.

Sophie was a pet store puppy, “the sleepiest of a litter of otherwise bumptious cattle dogs.” Although apparently disinterested in human attention, she nevertheless caught the eye |

of 16-year-old Bridget Griffith, who “fell hopelessly in love” with her. Gentle and affectionate, Sophie quickly won the hearts of Bridget’s parents and became the “fifth child” in a family of four children. Over time she transformed them from “steadfast canine disciplinarians to utter softies” who allowed her to come indoors and lay claim to an old leather armchair, a feat no other Griffith dog had ever accomplished. When Bridget left for college a year later, the bond between Sophie and Bridget’s parents—especially her father—intensified. In 2009, while the Griffiths and their canine “bestie” were out sailing, Sophie quietly slipped off the deck of their boat and into the ocean. A grief-stricken husband and wife gave up their beloved dog as lost. But against all odds, Sophie managed to swim treacherous, shark-infested waters to land on one, then another, sparsely populated island. Rejecting the humans with whom she came into contact, she survived alone for an incredible five months until she was captured and returned to the Griffiths. Occasionally overdramatized, this story of canine loyalty and the power of human-animal relationships is as charming as its blue-furred heroine.

A treat for dog lovers. (8 pages of color photographs)

CELEBRITY, INC. How Famous People Make Money

Piazza, Jo OpenRoad Integrated Media (236 pp.) $24.99 paperback | $24.99 e-book Nov. 15, 2011 978-1-4532-1879-2 978-1-4532-0551-8 e-book Entertainment journalist Piazza dissects the industrialization of fame in the age of celebrity.

A celebrity may be a person, but celebrity is a product, a commodity bought and sold, writes the author in this rangy analysis of the celebrity business. Like it or not, our culture has invested its celebrities with extraordinary power, and Piazza presents all the players involved, including managers, agents, publicists and producers. A dozen vignettes explore the ways in which celebrity is created and revenue streams are activated, whether it is celebrity in the long run, as in an Oscar win (there is a terrific chapter on how to buy an Oscar), or the short-term celebrity through association (Tiger Woods’ lovers going public: “Their investment was just their dignity, and the payoff was substantial”). Since she has been intimately involved in the business, Piazza’s chapter on celebrity magazines, from copy to newsstand placement, is particularly revealing, and she is willing to call a spade a spade when it comes to the cheesier aspects of celebritydom, from the selling of baby photos to the “leaked” sex tapes that launched Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. She also takes on the evolution of various branding styles and the ways in which notoriety in one sphere can be parlayed into licensing deals in another. In perhaps the most enlightening chapter, Piazza explains why some celebrities survive and others fizzle. You have to be fun and relatable, inclusive and

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“Serious ammunition to pack for your next job interview.” from are you smart enough to work at google?

JOSEPH ROTH A Life in Letters

aspirational, but most of all likable and consistent, which is why Lindsay Lohan tanked (inconsistent) and Charlie Sheen shines on (consistent in his craziness).

It’s rarely pretty, but Piazza ably demonstrates the celebrity machine’s remarkable efficiency in getting us to give it our money.

ARE YOU SMART ENOUGH TO WORK AT GOOGLE? Trick Questions, Zen-like Riddles, Insanely Difficult Puzzles, and Other Devious Interviewing Techniques You Need to Know to Get a Job Anywhere in the New Economy Poundstone, William Little, Brown (256 pp.) $19.99 | Jan. 4, 2012 978-0-316-09997-4

Poundstone (Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value, 2010, etc.) surveys today’s tough job-interview questions.

“We live in an age of desperation,” writes the author. “Never in living memory has the competition for job openings been more intense. Never have job interviews been tougher. This is the bitter fruit of the jobless recovery and the changing nature of work.” Job interviews have become not only personally invasive, but also intellectually diabolical. Behavioral questions and work samples are now supplemented by logic puzzles, and this isn’t just at Google and Microsoft, but at the local shoe store as personnel departments have caught the general drift that there are more bodies than jobs and talent goes begging. Despite the air of gloom, Poundstone keeps a jaunty tone as he gives advice on how to field the offbeat, odd-angle questions tossed by interviewers, often open-ended and with no definitive correct answer—in order to test mental flexibility, entrepreneurial potential and innovativeness. Google’s hiring process is the author’s standard, which sets the bar pretty high, but its practice is contagious: “Weird interview questions are a meme, like a joke or viral video. It’s catchiness, rather than proof of their effectiveness, that keeps them in circulation.” Hiring is still a game of chance, yet for the “zombie hordes of unemployed and underemployed [who] are willing to claw at anything that even looks like a job,” Poundstone offers dozens of teasers to tackle (answers included). These include insight questions and lateralthinking puzzles, how to spot an algorithm question and how to dig below the cryptic surface. In perhaps the most inspired paragraphs, he explains the art of salvaging the southbound interview, but he notes that much of this is improvisation.

Serious ammunition to pack for your next job interview.

Roth, Joseph Translated by Hofmann, Michael Norton (512 pp.) $39.95 | Jan. 16, 2012 978-0-393-06064-5

The doomed world of interwar Europe comes to burning life in the anguished correspondence of the peripatetic Austrian novelist/journalist.

Roth (1894–1939) was one of the best-known, highest-paid journalists writing in German during the 1920s and ‘30s. He was also a superb novelist, a terrible drunk, an implacable enemy and an impossible friend, qualities that all leap off the pages of this collection. Perfectly translated by poet Hofmann (who should have left the footnotes to someone with a more systematic mind), Roth’s manic letters chronicle a life led from café table to hotel room to train station, scribbling articles for the Frankfurter Zeitung in between the series of novels that made his reputation. The pace was unsustainable, as were Roth’s finances. He was forever borrowing against advances and begging for money from better-heeled friends like the long-suffering Stefan Zweig, a more successful author who had—they both knew—less talent than Roth. It remains a mystery how the disorderly Roth found time to toss off these letters of coruscating brilliance, featuring trenchant, prescient analyses of the Nazi threat at a time when most of his fellow Jewish intellectuals were hoping it would blow over in a few years. A staunch Austrian monarchist who despised communists almost as much as fascists, Roth cut all ties with Germany immediately after the Nazis took power and scathingly criticized anyone, especially anyone Jewish, who tried to compromise with the regime. His correspondence in later years is almost unbearable to read, as he sunk deeper into alcoholism and despair, but his zest for language and his total commitment to literature glow through even the most crazed rantings. It’s easy to understand his agony when we read via his letters of an entire humane, cosmopolitan culture being murdered, as Jewish and antifascist writers saw their publications banned, their royalties confiscated and their lives threatened.

A quintessential depiction of one man’s view from the brink of the abyss.

CAIN’S LEGACY Liberating Siblings from a Lifetime of Rage, Shame, Secrecy, and Regret

Safer, Jeanne Basic (288 pp.) $25.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-0-465-01940-3

A psychotherapist identifies how unresolved, destructive sibling rivalries play a special role in our adult lives, shaping both our sense of identity and how we deal with work, marriage and parenthood.

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Safer (Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adult’s Life—For the Better, 2008, etc.) suggests that Sigmund Freud, a favored son, was unable to deal with his own guilt toward his sister. In his opinion, this left him blind-sided when he probed the crucial role of childhood experience and developed his theories about the Oedipus conflict, penis envy, etc. Today, writes the author, a shift in psychotherapy has occurred “from intrapsychic processes to interpersonal transactions,” which has led to more consideration of the importance of sibling relationships. Safer provides anecdotes—taken from case studies, interviews, experiences related to her by friends and her own disturbed relationship with her brother—to provide a road map to help readers identify the hidden dynamics within families.

She also gives examples of successful efforts to achieve reconciliation between adult siblings—with and without professional help—and calls attention to pitfalls that can short circuit the sometimes-slow process of building a healthy new relationship.

In families, not only may certain children be favored, creating guilt on the one hand and animosity on the other, but parents may unwittingly chose favorites on the basis of their own unresolved sibling relationships. Safer references the biblical stories of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau and Joseph and his brothers to show how such intergenerational conflicts can persist but also be resolved. She also offers several contemporary examples of successful reconciliation efforts.

An important contribution to the self-help bookshelf.

IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO, AND IT NEVER HAPPENED ANYWAY Russia and the Communist Past

Satter, David Yale Univ. (384 pp.) $29.95 | Dec. 13, 2011 978-0-300-11145-3

Sober, trenchant exploration of the need for settling the crimes of the Soviet Union with history.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, yet a proper reckoning over its 73 years of totalitarianism has not yet been achieved, writes Hudson Institute senior fellow Satter (Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State, 2003, etc.). Reflecting his own visits to Russia, the author looks at various facets of Russian society with an eye on the Soviet past—e.g., national monuments, textbooks, the election of Vladimir Putin and rehabilitation of many of Soviet leaders—and he questions why a moral reflection has not penetrated very deeply. Many Russians look back at the Soviet era as a time of solidity and security, when everyone had jobs and were taken care of by the state, and the Soviet Union was perceived as powerful. The election of Putin has reinforced a dangerous tilt toward nostalgia, as one of his first acts when assuming power in 2000 was to restore a plaque commemorating his former KGB boss, Yuri Andropov, the “coldblooded” autocrat. Even though the crimes of the Soviet regime eventually became known to the people, the dossiers of KGB |

informers were swiftly closed by law in 1992, and President Yeltsin’s attempts to ban the Communist Party in 1994 were largely foiled. Putin’s proposal to reintroduce the Soviet national anthem “enabled Russians to be proud of the Soviet-era achievements,” but without the essential moral introspection. Throughout Satter’s journeys across Russia, he witnessed the struggle between forces of remembrance and forgetting.

A fascinating, deeply thoughtful and researched study that contributes mightily to the ongoing humanist debate.

ALL THE MISSING SOULS A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunal Scheffer, David Princeton Univ. (552 pp.) $35.00 | Jan. 1, 2012 978-0-691-14015-5

Firsthand account of the war crimes tribunals created in the 1990s to prosecute perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Beginning in 1993, Scheffer (Law/Northwestern Univ.) led efforts to create tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Cambodia—all of which culminated in the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002. Working first as senior advisor to Madeleine Albright, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and then as U.S. ambassadorat-large for war-crimes issues in the Clinton administration, the author was deeply involved in every aspect of the quest to bring to justice political and military leaders responsible for the murder and mutilation of millions. Scheffer re-creates the period of murder and ethnic cleansing, describes the politicking required to convince nations to act and weighs the successes and missteps of diplomacy aimed at creating a new era of international justice. “I saw so much misery for so many years that my memories remain consumed by human suffering,” he writes. His graphic descriptions of mutilated victims in hospital wards underscore the urgency of his pioneering work and explain his anger and frustration at the behavior of Western nations, which offered excuses and prevarications over apprehending war-crimes suspects, with the United States taking a “dangerously isolated” policy on the international court because of the Pentagon’s fear that U.S. soldiers abroad might be prosecuted. From the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo to the trial of Charles Taylor in Sierra Leone, Scheffer recounts the highlights of this “truly international counterattack on impunity for the worst possible crimes.”

Reflecting after nearly a decade of battles, the author writes that international justice is the art of the possible and requires endless patience and persistence.

May not appeal to a general audience, but an important resource for scholars and specialists in international law.

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2009

WANTED WOMEN Faith, Lies, and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui

Scroggins, Deborah Harper/HarperCollins (464 pp.) $25.99 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-0-06-089897-7

In-depth portrait of two prominent women in the Islamic world.

Two women, one from Somalia, one from Pakistan—both intelligent, ambitious and Islamic: So how did one woman become a strong opponent of Islam and its practices toward women and one woman become a supporting member of the mujahideen? This is the fundamental question Scroggins (Emma’s War: A True Story, 2002) attempts to answer in her comprehensive chronicle of the private and public lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui. The Somali-born Ali found refuge in Holland, where she rose to a leadership role in Dutch Parliament while waging war against the Islamic practices that hold women behind “the veil and the home’s four walls.” On the other hand, Siddiqui feverishly defends Islam and willingly works with members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban to promote the Koran in the hopes that “more and more people come to the [religion] of Allah until America becomes a Muslim land.”

Secret marriages, lies, death threats and disappearances add “layers to the tale of the war on terror,” while disturbing descriptions of female genital mutilation, beheadings and torture add to the behind-the-scenes immediacy and significance of Scroggins’ extensive reporting. Although the alternating chapters disrupt the flow of each woman’s personal story, readers will question the role of women in Islam and the world as they learn more about the “anti-Muslim pundits and politicians in the United States and Holland” and the positions taken by the CIA, FBI and various Islamic groups during the War on Terror.

A capable narrative of two women with similar backgrounds who moved in radically different directions because of their religious upbringing. (Author appearances in Boston)

THE TEA PARTY AND THE REMAKING OF REPUBLICAN CONSERVATISM

Skocpol, Theda and Williamson, Vanessa Oxford Univ. (288 pp.) $24.95 | Jan. 2, 2012 978-0-19-983263-7

Two Harvard scholars investigate the latest iteration of third-party radicalism in the United States.

Skocpol (Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, 2003, etc.) and Williamson research the Tea Party from the ground up, rooting their study in focused fieldwork surrounding three local 2010

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Tea Party groups in Massachusetts, Virginia and Arizona. The authors pepper firsthand anecdotes with extensive—and at times weighty—statistical and polling data. The perspectives and opinions of the subjects are skillfully interwoven with analysis of their civic habits, economic status, religious inclinations and ideologies. After a thorough background in the demographics of Tea Partiers, as well as their shared passions and sources of discord among this fledgling movement, the authors investigate the fascinating, and often unlikely, pairing of grassroots organizers and wealthy investors, politicos and influence peddlers who are seeking to capitalize on the media spotlight currently shining on the Tea Party. Credited with dramatically influencing the 2010 midterm elections, expectations are high as to how Tea Partiers and their core group of middle-class, volunteer-oriented proponents will affect the 2012 presidential election. According to the authors, one thing is certain: The anger many Tea Partiers express is aimed squarely at President Obama, raising the stakes for both grassroots organizers and those flush, politically minded groups seeking to ally themselves with the Tea Party.

A timely study of a contemporary movement and its farreaching effects on politics and policy.

THE ALZHEIMER’S PREVENTION PROGRAM Keep Your Brain Healthy for the Rest of Your Life

Small, Gary & Vorgan, Gigi Workman (288 pp.) $24.95 | Jan. 15, 2012 978-0-7611-6526-2

Small (Director/UCLA Longevity Center and freelance writer Vorgan (coauthors: The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head, 2010, etc.) introduce elements of a program to optimize brain health.

The authors begin with a general introduction to our current understanding of Alzheimer’s, including the possible roles played by amyloid plaques (waxy protein fragments) and tau tangles (twisted fibers), as well as other proteins, inflammation and oxidation. Though much of Alzheimer’s is an uncharted landscape, it does appear that genetic considerations play a role only one-third of the time, leaving two-thirds to nongenetic factors.

Thus enters the authors’ plan to maintain a healthy brain as a preventative measure (and not only for Alzheimer’s but other dementias). In a clear, prudent voice, Small and Vorgan present the components of their program—“Physical exercise, a nutritious diet, mental stimulation, and stress reduction have their greatest impact when people combine these strategies and continue them for several years”—and delve deeply into each one, tendering anecdotal evidence and the results from experimental studies. They proceed with self-assessment questionnaires of both subjective and objective perspectives and give concrete advice—brain teasers, exercise programs, memory-strengthening skills, nutritional guidelines—on how to build the components into your life. Finally, they offer a step-by-step, seven-day

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“Bottom-up history from a top-shelf researcher.” from hey, america, your roots are showing

SITUATIONS MATTER Understanding How Context Transforms Your World

regimen during which, they suggest, “you will begin to notice changes.” The program blends action with moderation, and the authors note that you tinker with the program—a helpful note especially in relation to the food recommendations, which are lackluster at best.

A commonsensical guide to help keep your brain in fighting trim.

HEY, AMERICA, YOUR ROOTS ARE SHOWING Adventures in Discovering News-Making Connections, Unexpected Ancestors, and Long-Hidden Secrets, and Solving Historical Puzzles Smolenyak, Megan Citadel/Kensington (272 pp.) $15.95 paperback | Feb. 1, 2012 978-0-8065-3446-6

History’s mysteries solved by a dogged genealogist.

Readers may recognize Smolenyak (Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family’s History, 2010, etc.) from her many TV and radio appearances discussing her instrumental role nailing down Barack Obama’s Irish roots, researching the First Lady’s family tree or establishing the Reverend Al Sharpton’s slave ancestors as the property of the notorious segregationist Strom Thurmond’s family. She’s generated a slew of other headline-grabbing articles that help fill in the crevices of American history: identifying the real Annie Moore, Ellis Island’s first immigrant, or recovering the life story of Philip Reed, the former slave responsible for the casting the bronze statue of Freedom atop the nation’s Capitol. Sometimes, the historical riddle lies in an artifact. What’s the story behind a Yiddish inscribed tombstone found leaning against a fire hydrant on the Lower East Side? What’s the provenance of a Bible rescued from a Civil War battlefield? In this breezy narrative, Smolenyak supplies the back story to these and other investigations, allowing us to look over the shoulder of a relentless genealogist as she works the puzzle pieces of her craft. More commonly, she’s busy finding the “primary next of kin” for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, putting medical examiners in touch with the families of unclaimed persons, helping the FBI revisit troubling cases of racially motivated homicide during the civil-rights era or assisting everyday folks with their adoption searches. Whether unearthing evidence from Internet databases, newspaper offices, court houses, libraries and cemeteries, consulting translators, historians or her vast network of fellow genealogists, pioneering the use of genealogical DNA testing, solving the mystery or occasionally hitting a brick wall, Smolenyak remains wholly committed, curious and cheery (exclamation marks abound), eager to share her methods and excitement.

Bottom-up history from a top-shelf researcher.

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Sommers, Sam Riverhead (304 pp.) $25.95 | Jan. 1, 2012 978-1-59448-818-4

Sommers (Psychology/Tufts Univ.) pokes holes in the comfortable assumption that our actions are driven by character.

The author calls attention to how our behavior is influenced by the context of the situations we face, invoking the software term WYSIWYG to describe the way people tend to accept an “oversimplified picture of human nature, clinging as we do to the belief that what you see is what you get.” He refers to a 2009 experiment—modeled on Stanley Milgram’s much-cited earlier version—to illustrate how ordinary people can be induced to administer torture. Participants were partnered in what they were told was an experiment on the effect of punishment on learning. The job of one was to administer increasingly powerful shocks whenever the other (actually an actor pretending to be shocked) gave a wrong answer. A lab-coated experimenter encouraged the teacher to continue to the end of the protocol, despite agonized screams from the next room begging him to stop. When the setting for the experiment was a university, 65 percent continued to administer increasingly powerful shocks; however, when the so-called experimenter dressed informally, only 20 percent were willing to follow his prompts and continue.

Sommers suggests that children are cued to the “ubiquitous societal norms regarding gender,” which accounts for much of what we accept as biologically determined gender behavior.

An enjoyable guide for would-be free-thinkers on how to recognize social influences that shape behavior.

RECLAIMING THE BIBLE FOR A NON-RELIGIOUS WORLD

Spong, John Shelby HarperOne (432 pp.) $28.99 | Nov. 8, 2011 978-0062011282

Tiring attack on the “ancient, sacred, and mythological book we call the Bible.”

Though former Episcopal bishop Spong (Eternal Life: A New Vision, 2009, etc.) claims to have had a “longtime love affair” with the Bible, it is hard to see that in this book-by-book attack upon the Old and New Testaments. The author makes it clear that he sees the Bible as at best a collection of heavily edited myths and allegories, at worst an outright lie. Spong’s stated purpose of introducing modern higher criticism of the Bible to ordinary readers seems laudable, but he fails to pull it off. He does not effectively introduce biblical criticism to those who might

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actually believe the Bible. Instead of building a bridge of understanding, he challenges readers to leap across a canyon from ignorance to enlightenment. Spong shows no interest in compromise; rather, he judges as deluded or silly those readers who believe that anything in the Bible is literal or based on historical fact. The author doesn’t seem to comprehend or care that the world is far from “non-religious,” and his book is geared toward those who are already at the cusp of disbelief.

Though many of his ideas are already well-known arguments, Spong also includes theories of his own—e.g., the Apostle Paul was “a deeply repressed gay man”; basically nothing in the Gospel of John should be taken literally. The author is so lost in refuting scripture that he has forgotten what that scripture’s tie to real people even is.

Once intriguingly controversial, Spong is now tediously irrelevant.

THE CRUSADER The Life and Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan Stanley, Timothy Dunne/St. Martin’s (432 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 11, 2012 978-0-312-58174-9 978-1-4299-4128-0 e-book

History Today columnist Stanley (Kennedy vs. Carter: The 1980 Battle for the Democratic Party’s Soul, 2010) treats the paleoconservative and “culture warrior” to a sympathetic close-up and finds he’s a hard guy to dislike—even if we have him to thank for Sarah Palin.

Buchanan has been on the American political scene for decades.

This crisp narrative goes all the way back to the beginning on the streets of Georgetown where he learned the importance of quick hands and unwavering loyalty. Both attributes would serve him well throughout his stormy life as a political pundit, advisor to two presidents and three-time presidential contender. Stanley tracks these events with a professional level of scrutiny that is rarely unflattering, but never quite fawning. We learn that Buchanan stokes the fire in his belly with a burning desire to return America to a sanitized version of itself, a time when same-sex couples were criminals and every nice white family had a black maid all its own. And so what if he understood AIDS as “nature’s retribution” and once referred to Hitler as a “man of courage.” He’s also sharp, witty and talented. Even liberal commentator Rachel Maddow, we learn, reserves a begrudging affection for the guy. These confounding complexities are so delightfully examined that the last third of the book proves to be something of a disappointment, as the biographical thread almost gets lost in tangential analyses of dusty opponents like Bob Dole, Lamar Alexander and George H.W. Bush. Stanley gives only cursory attention to Buchanan’s TV career as a ubiquitous talking head. The takeaway is that while he has been consigned as an “also-ran,” Buchanan has undoubtedly been successful in at least one thing: elevating group biases to the level of “cultural issues” and thereby making possible the ascent of the Tea Party and similar groups.

An engrossing look inside an ultra-conservative mind.

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SOLVING THE COMMUNION ENIGMA What Is to Come

Strieber, Whitley Tarcher/Penguin (240 pp.) $25.95 | Jan. 5, 2012 978-1-58542-917-2

The author allegedly abducted by aliens in 1985 returns to further his case in this “true sequel.”

It’s been a quarter-century since prolific horror author Strieber (Hybrids, 2011, etc.) frighteningly comingled extraterrestrial science fiction with reality in his factual accounting of an alien visitation (Communion, 1987). His testimonial unleashed a flood of stories from others similarly terrified after encounters with “the grays.” In this cathartic update, the author engagingly discusses his troubled childhood fraught with tortuous medical maladies, and then details sinister events at the upstate New York cabin where the original event occurred, and where he’d since forged a “relationship with our visitors.” But Strieber’s attempt at both clarification and further extrapolation of the facts oscillates between compelling and confusing, which muddies both his intent and his credibility. He directs more skeptical readers toward his appraisals of anomalies like crop-circle formations, civilian abductions, UFOs, orbs, random animal mutilations and the bizarre ear implant he received in 1989 that still “occasionally turns on.” Strieber is a convincing if frenetic theorist, but much of what he calls “truth” remains speculative or has previously been debunked. The author does not know how these celestial beings got here or what they want, only that “they are in control.” While he provides a wealth of material to digest (for those with an open mind), what remains static is that the indefatigable Strieber is still sticking to his story, even with the daunting burden of proof yet to be realized.

Embellished, hyper-imaginative entertainment or a snapshot of the future? Readers will have to decide.

DIRTY MINDS How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex, and Relationships

Sukel, Kayt Free Press (256 pp.) $25.00 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-4516-1155-7

A neuroscience writer with a failed marriage checks out the latest research on the brain, searching for an answer to the big question: What exactly is love?

In her debut, travelsavvymom.com partner Sukel chronicles her “quest to better understand the scientific nature of love.” She begins with her amazement at a quip made by British researcher Nicolas Read at a symposium: “If we realized how sexy babies are they would have been banned.” It seemed to speak to her own experience after the birth of her son, which coincided with the

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implosion of her marriage. She checks in with a number of neuropsychologists and even volunteers as a subject for a study of how the brain responds to sexual stimulation. While it has been established that the sex drive is located in the hypothalamus, romance and love are not only or even chiefly about sex. Sukel tracks down scientists who are trying to discover the interrelationship between hormones such as estrogen and testosterone and the neurochemicals dopamine, oxytocin and vasopressin (thought to induce pleasure). Not only are these neurochemicals connected to the brain’s reward system, but they appear to play a role in the development of the brain by selectively causing certain genes to be expressed while suppressing others.

The author’s account of her experience inducing an orgasm while hooked up to an fMRI scanner adds spice to her quest, but the science she reports, though still inconclusive, is fascinating in its own right.

A NATION OF MOOCHERS America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing Sykes, Charles J. St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $25.99 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-0-312-54770-7

Curmudgeonly screed that simply echoes rhetoric all too familiar in today’s

political dialogue.

Even those who wholeheartedly agree with radio talk-show host Sykes (50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-good Education, 2007, etc.) are unlikely to find much food for thought in this warmed-over attack on what he describes as America’s “new culture of bailouts and irresponsible grasping, everything from corporations feeding at the trough to the permanent ‘victims’ of Hurricane Katrina.” While the author directs some of his ire toward CEOs and large corporations, his main target are the largely undeserving lower classes and a welfare state that has replaced the older American culture of self-reliance and increasingly “sustain[s] deadbeats” with “Other People’s Money.”

Sykes accepts the necessity of the “[n]early half of means-tested welfare payments that go to low-income elderly in nursing homes or the disabled,” but not so the other half, which he claims go to “able-bodied adults and their children.” He targets extended unemployment benefits, foreclosure relief and even school breakfast programs for needy children as unwarranted: “If America’s children were actually in the throes of famine or the landscape were littered with victims of deprivation, even an expensive program might be justified.” Many readers on both sides of the partisan political divide, will likely agree with his diatribe against “The Great Bailout of 2008-2009…[in which] taxpayers were essentially required to underwrite a decade of [financial] recklessness,” but it’s not exactly news.

A tired argument for Tea Partiers and fans of conservative talk radio.

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THE WANDERING GENE AND THE INDIAN PRINCESS Race, Religion, and DNA

Wheelwright, Jeff Norton (304 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 16, 2012 978-0-393-08191-6

A freewheeling trip through Southwestern culture and religion, Jewish history and modern genetics.

In 2008, science writer Wheelwright reported in Smithsonian magazine on the discovery in Catholic Hispanos in New Mexico and Colorado of a genetic mutation, BRCA1.185delAG, that is characteristic of Jews. The mutation, whose designation indicates that the letters AG are missing at location 185 on the gene, causes the gene to fail at its task of suppressing cancer. The author tells the story of the discovery of its ancient origins more than 2,000 years ago among Hebrew tribes in the Middle East, the dispersion of the Jews to Europe, the enforced conversion of many Jews to Catholicism under the Spanish Inquisition and the arrival of Spaniards in the New World. Into this large picture, Wheelwright weaves the story of Shonnie Medina, a young Hispano woman who carried the mutation, and of her extended family, possible carriers of the gene. Medina was raised a Catholic but became a Jehovah’s Witness, a fact that allows the author to weave another thread into his complex tapestry. Other important characters include: Jeff Shaw, a genetic counselor who worked with Medina’s family; Dr. Harry Ostrer, head of the Human Genetics Program at NYU and author of a paper on DNA and Jewishness; Stanley Hordes, author of a book on the crypto-Jews of New Mexico whose research was supported by the discovery of the mutated gene; and Judith Neulander, an ethnographer who disputed Hordes’ claims. The cast is large and the story covers millennia, but with Medina and her family at its center, it is still small and personal.

An intriguing tale told with gusto. (10 illustrations)

THE MAGIC ROOM A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters Zaslow, Jeffrey Gotham Books (336 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 2, 2012 978-1-592-40661-6

Wall Street Journal columnist Zaslow (The Girls from Ames, 2009, etc.) delivers an emotive excursion through the world of parents and daughters and the state of marriage in the United States.

The author approaches his subjects via a small-town Michigan bridal shop, a canny choice in that he can take measure of the heartland while framing the bigger picture through sociological

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studies and then tightening down to his own fears and hopes as a father of three girls. The town of Fowler has only 1,100 residents, but it is a major crossroads in many lives: Becker’s Bridal has sold more than 100,000 gowns over nearly eight decades and four generations of Beckers. Zaslow writes in a tone of inclusive intimacy, focusing on six women who went to Becker’s to find the right dress. The author plucks at the heartstrings as he relates all the yearnings of the brides-to-be and the travails they encounter on the way to the alter. Zaslow offers plenty of statistics about love and marriage, but they pale in comparison to the everyday stories of the complex circumstances that often surround the big day. “A wedding is a happy life-cycle event, yes, but the harsher life-cycle moments aren’t kept at bay until after the wedding […] weddings are often optimistic islands surrounded by oceans of uncertainty, loneliness, and grief,” he writes. “For some women, a bridal gown can feel like a life preserver.” The author’s vignettes of the six women are wildly dissimilar, but they weave together into a complicated damascene that holds true to much age-old wisdom: Marriage involves serious demands on patience, endless petty annoyances and many compromises, as well as modesty, respect and duty.

Zaslow’s profile of the bridal shop, from the geopolitics of dressmaking to the effects of TV shows like Bridezillas, is almost as riveting as the bridal tales.

was fueled by politicians who found that extreme positions brought votes, and by talk radio with its “constant generation of low-grade outrage.” When fellow citizens were viewed as potential predators, carrying a gun became a must, and one could buy guns and ammo as easily as a quart of milk—which is precisely what Loughner did. The gunman wandered alone, ignored or purposefully avoided, until he acted, taking from his environment shards of reality that led to mayhem. Zoellner brilliantly evokes the past and present of Arizona, the outsized personalities that have shaped the state and the paranoia lurking at the edge of society.

A sure-to-be-controversial, troubling tale of the wages of fear on the body politic.

A SAFEWAY IN ARIZONA What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State and Life in Arizona

Zoellner, Tom Viking (256 pp.) $26.95 | Jan. 2, 2012 978-0-670-02320-2

Investigative journalist and native Arizonian Zoellner (Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World, 2009, etc.) combines memoir, history and reportage in an attempt to understand mass murder and the attempted assassination of a friend in Tucson.

The author notes he has truly loved few people in his life, but “Gabrielle had quietly come to be one of them.” In January 2011, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head outside a Safeway supermarket by Jared Lee Loughner. Six people died, and 18 were injured. Loughner alone was responsible for this carnage, but what was it about Arizona, and perhaps America, that facilitated his schizophrenic rampage? Zoellner finds this context in the fear and hatred that has engulfed Arizona. Always a place for self-reinvention, this was accompanied by a rootlessness culminating in endless tracks of suburban housing where neighbors isolated themselves in air-conditioned solitude. When economic hard times hit the state, isolation turned to unremitting anger. Latinos—though soon to be the majority population of the state—were suspect, and laws were passed to root out the illegals among them.

Big government became a chimerical enemy, and hatred of it 2014

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children & teens EVERY OTHER DAY

Barnes, Jennifer Lynn Egmont USA (336 pp.) $17.99 | Dec. 27, 2011 978-1-60684-169-3

Dial up the suspense in this series opener about a girl superhero who battles monsters.

Kali lives with her indifferent father, who doesn’t seem to notice that every other day his daughter isn’t home. Kali’s blood changes every 24 hours to something not human, giving her superpowers and a lust to slaughter the hellhounds, dragons and basilisks that plague humankind but that are protected as endangered species. When she sees that a girl in school has become infected with a parasite that will kill her, Kali deliberately attracts the worm into her own body, hoping she can survive until her inhuman, monster-killing blood kicks in to destroy it.

All doesn’t go as expected, however, when Kali actually makes friends who help her track down the evil corporation that appears to be genetically altering the monsters. During her superhuman day she also tries to find Zev, whose voice she has been able to hear in her head ever since she absorbed the killer parasite. She’ll also learn something she didn’t want to know: just how she herself came to be. This science-fiction story adopts a fairly standard mad-scientist premise but ends up coming across just as much a paranormal adventure, with its focus on monsters and telepathy.

Lonely Kali’s responses to her new friends add some pathos to the story, but the main focus remains on suspense, well delivered.

Some good thrills. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

EXTRA YARN

Barnett, Mac Illus. by Klassen, Jon Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $16.99 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-0-06-195338-5 A little girl in a town of white snow and soot-blackened chimneys opens a small box and discovers a never-ending gift of colorful yarn.

Annabelle knits herself a sweater, and with the leftover yarn she knits one for her dog, and with the yarn left over from that, she knits one for a neighbor and for her classmates and for her teacher and for her family and for the birdhouse and for the buildings in town. All and everything are warm, cozy and colorful until a clotheshorse of an archduke arrives. Annabelle |

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refuses his monetary offers, whereupon the box is stolen. The greedy archduke gets his just deserts when he opens the box to find it empty. It wends its way back to Annabelle, who ends up happily sitting in a knit-covered tree. Klassen, who worked on the film Coraline, uses inks, gouache and colorized scans of a sweater to create a stylized, linear design of dark geometric shapes against a white background. The stitches of the sweaters add a subdued rainbow. Barnett entertained middle-grade readers with his Brixton Brothers detective series. Here, he maintains a folkloric narrative that results in a traditional story arc complete with repetition, drama and a satisfying conclusion.

A quiet story of sharing with no strings attached. (Picture book. 4-7)

STILL WATERS

Berne, Emma Carlson Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (218 pp.) $9.99 paperback | Dec. 20, 2011 978-1-4424-2114-1 A girl decides to surprise her boyfriend with a weekend trip, but it goes wrong. Could their problems be supernatural—or something else?

Hannah thinks she loves Colin.

When she finds a map to an abandoned summer home owned by Colin’s family, she strings together a series of lies that work to get them to the deserted place. Once there, however, they find themselves isolated, without electricity or phone coverage, and Colin seems to respond to the place strangely. Hannah begins to regret her deceptions, and she realizes that she may be in serious danger from her own boyfriend when he disables the car and begins to act as though he were a different person. Berne employs a simple, accessible writing style and uses it to build effective suspense. Readers will wonder what’s going on, and they may suspect that something supernatural is afoot. Is the house possessing Colin, or might something else haunt the boy?

Clues do not abound, making this story less a mystery than a suspense tale. The author resolves the problem rather abruptly, seemingly more interested in the explanation than in finding a clever escape for Hannah. However, that explanation brings the book to a realistic conclusion that’s quite welcome amid the current paranormal craze.

Short, simple, appealing. (Psychological thriller. 12 & up)

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PINK SMOG

treatment for the rhyming lines provide a pleasant visual interpretation but can’t save the limping text.

Older preschoolers will find this too babyish, and toddlers (and adults) will prefer Brown’s classic. (Picture book/ religion. 2-4)

Block, Francesca Lia HarperTeen (208 pp.) $17.99 | PLB $18.89 | Jan. 24, 2012 978-0-06-156598-4 978-0-06-156599-1 PLB Does this failed prequel to the Phoenix Award–winning Weetzie Bat (1989) at least succeed as a standalone novel?

It’s 1975, and 13-year-old Louise Bat is mourning the death of her parents’ marriage. In a first-person voice that breaks any possibility of the magical realism that made the original Dangerous Angels series so powerful, Weetzie explores the scariness of her apartment complex. At school, she forms an outcasts club with anorexic Lily and (requisite for Block) gay best friend Bobby, having friends can protect her only so much from bathroom graffiti and gum in her hair. Worse, the mean girls of junior high have nothing on the scary witchlike inhabitants of unit 13: purple-eyed Hypatia Wiggins and her nasty, Jayne Mansfield–loving daughter Annabelle (any possible connection to Weetzie Bat’s purple-eyed, Jayne Mansfield–wannabe witch, Vixanne Wigg, is left undeveloped).

But perhaps Weetzie has a guardian angel at both home and school: Winter, Annabelle’s brother. Is it Winter who’s leaving her the notes that show her L.A. at its most sparkly, mysterious and flavorful? Inexplicably, Weetzie’s story concludes by cutting off any possibility of magic in this realism.

A dreamlike tale of bullying and coping that owes slightly too much to nostalgia to work. (Fiction. 12-15)

GOODNIGHT, ANGELS

Carlson, Melody Illus. by Allsopp, Sophie Zonderkidz (32 pp.) $15.99 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-0-310-71687-7

A little boy says goodnight to his friends, family, toys and household items in this earnest but unsuccessful effort that is a pale imitation of the concept and structure of the classic Goodnight, Moon.

The unnamed child, who appears to be 4 or 5, narrates the story with rhyming couplets in “goodnight to the…” format. He bids his friends goodnight as he heads home with his parents, and then says goodnight with the structured format as he moves through snack, bath and bedtime rituals.

The only religious content is in the final two spreads, when he says goodnight to “Father God” and the angels watching over him, providing a comforting conclusion. The wording of the text is often not true to the voice of a child (“the last bit of my bedtime snack”), and the choice of objects (rubber duckie, bath bubbles and bunny slippers) and overall tone create a sticky-sweet effect. Allsopp’s panoramic illustrations in watercolor and pencil and a flowing type 2016

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LITTLE DOG LOST The True Story of a Brave Dog Named Baltic Carnesi, Mônica Illus. by Carnesi, Mônica Nancy Paulsen Books (32 pp.) $15.99 | Jan. 5, 2012 978-0-399-25666-0

A terrifying adventure set against an icy backdrop turns into a heartwarming tale of one canine’s remarkable courage and resilience.

This sweet picture book recounts the amazing true tale of a dog discovered floating on an ice floe on the Vistula River off Poland in January 2010. No one knows where the animal comes from or how it has found itself in this predicament. Trapped it is, however, as it drifts 75 miles downriver for two days, defying rescue attempts. Finally, a scientific vessel, the R/V Baltica, spots the freezing, sodden, starving animal, and a crewman saves it, not without considerable difficulty. After recovering, the dog is nicknamed “Baltic,” and it remains aboard to become a beloved, valued crew member. The story is told simply and charmingly. The author’s use of the present tense gives the narrative immediacy, and with very brief sentences, some dialogue and questions posed to readers, Carnesi imbues the tale with a strong sense of drama that will captivate young listeners. Her ink-and-watercolor illustrations are child-appealing and effectively capture the dog’s desperation and eventual contentment.

An author’s note with accompanying photographs places events in context and brings the story to a very satisfying conclusion.

This lost little dog will easily find a place in children’s hearts. (Informational picture book. 3-5)

DESTINED

Cast, P.C. & Cast, Kristin St. Martin’s Griffin (336 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 25, 2011 978-0-312-65025-4 Series: The House of Night, 9 The ninth book in the House of Night series opens with Zoey Redbird, the “Nerd Herd” and the rest of the red fledglings returning to school at the House of Night. Though the High Council decreed that Neferet allow their return, tensions on the Tulsa campus run high.

Neferet continues to wage her war of darkness with the help of both the evil White Bull and Aurox, a vessel created kirkusreviews.com

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“So what if there are anachronisms, character inconsistencies and weird tonal slips?

There’s too much overwrought fun to care.” from clockwork prince

to obey her every command. Rephaim, Stevie Rae’s Consort and ex–Raven Mocker, struggles to make peace with his decision to choose the Goddess Nyx and a human form over his father Kalona. And Zoey, while she tries to lead her circle in the fight against evil, must again come to terms with loss when her mother is found murdered. As it is told from no fewer than 11 points of view, it is sometimes difficult to envision how all the story threads will ultimately tie together, particularly in the first half of the novel. However, overarching themes about identity and loss help bind the story together and will likely appeal to teen readers. As the plot lines converge later in the novel, the action becomes both intense and thoroughly entertaining.

Though readers must be willing to overlook some seriously cringeworthy dialogue, this outing will not disappoint House of Night fans. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)

CLOCKWORK PRINCE

Clare, Cassandra McElderry (528 pp.) $19.99 | Dec. 6, 2011 978-1-4169-7588-5 Series: The Infernal Devices, 2 This sequel to Clockwork Angel (2010) pits gorgeous, attractively broken teens against a menacing evil.

There’s betrayal, mayhem and clockwork monstrosities, and the Shadowhunters have only two weeks to discover—oh, who are we kidding?

The plot is only surprisingly tasty icing on this cupcake of a melodramatic love triangle. Our heroes are Tessa, who may or may not be a warlock, and the beautiful Shadowhunter warrior boys who are moths to her forbidden flame. It’s not always clear why Tessa prefers Will to his beloved (and only) friend Jem, the dying, silvereyed, biracial sweetheart with the face of an angel. Jem, after all, is gentle and kind, her dearest confidante; Will is unpleasant to everyone around him. But poor, wretched Will—who “would have been pretty if he had not been so tall and so muscular”—has a deep, dark, thoroughly emo secret. His trauma puts all previous romantic difficulties to shame, from the Capulet/Montague feud all the way to Edward Cullen’s desire to chomp on Bella Swan.

Somehow there’s room for an interesting steampunk mystery amid all this angst. The supporting characters (unusually welldeveloped for a love-triangle romance) include multiple compelling young women who show strength in myriad ways. So what if there are anachronisms, character inconsistencies and weird tonal slips? There’s too much overwrought fun to care.

A purple page turner. (Fantasy. 13-16)

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LEGACY

Cochran, Molly Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (432 pp.) $17.99 | Dec. 20, 2011 978-1-4424-1739-7 It isn’t until 16-year-old Katy Jessavar is shipped off to boarding school 1,500 miles from home that she finally discovers “who—and what—” she really is.

At Ainsworth Preparatory School, nestled in the mysterious, fog-shrouded heart of Whitfield, Mass., Katy—or, rather, Serenity Katherine Ainsworth—comes face to face with the legacy of the mother she never knew and the powers that have always resided within her. Descended from a long line of great witches, Katy must learn to harness her mystical powers in order to battle the Darkness that threatens the town and the people she’s grown to love. Cochran’s first book for teens will satisfy readers hungry for a little paranormal excitement and romance in a post-Twilight world. The novel isn’t without its shortcomings, though. Readers will likely suffer whiplash adjusting to Katy and Peter’s inexplicably sudden shift from icy exchanges to passionate declarations of love, and for a girl who never knew her own mother, there is far too little exploration of Katy’s relationship with her newly found maternal relatives. That said, there is enough suspense and witchcraft to keep readers turning the pages.

Add a little romance and a few journeys to the spirit world, and the novel makes for a quick, entertaining read.

(Paranormal romance. 13 & up)

HOCKEY HALL OF FAME MVP TROPHIES AND WINNERS

Duff, Bob & Shea, Kevin Firefly (216 pp.) $29.95 paperback | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-55407-886-8 A vibrant introduction to the stars of professional hockey’s firmament.

Professional hockey dishes out more annual awards than any other sport, or at least it seems that way: highest scorer, best goalie, most valuable player as voted on by the players, most sportsmanlike, most valuable player in the playoffs and the highly esteemed Hart Trophy, given to “the most valuable player to his team,” though only one player in the whole league is chosen. Duff and Shea provide a thorough background for a handful of these awards—they have gone through any number of name changes and trophy models—and all the controversies and close calls. They then provide short biographies and crisp photos of the winners of the three principal trophies—there are enough action shots to make readers want to hit the pond for a little shinny. Occasionally the authors are reduced to clichés—”Montreal’s fiery right-winger with a nose |

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“Nothing spices up a boring road trip like moments of extreme terror.” from never say genius

for the net showed his doubters he was the real deal” (many will wonder exactly who Maurice “the Rocket” Richard’s doubters were) or hackneyed quotes. In general, though, the tone is enthusiastic, and the book runneth over with facts and lore.

Any hockey fan will revel in these profiles of most valuable players, especially the oldsters that stir such memories— all those goals, all those broken noses. (Nonfiction. 12 & up)

THE FLYING BEAVER BROTHERS AND THE EVIL PENGUIN PLAN

Eaton III, Maxwell Illus. by Eaton III, Maxwell Knopf (96 pp.) $6.99 paperback | PLB $12.99 Jan. 10, 2012 978-0-375-86447-6 978-0-375-96447-3 PLB Series: The Flying Beaver Brothers, 1 Who says penguins are cute?

The title tells readers everything they need to know. Or, as Ace puts it, “Hundreds of evil penguins!” Ace is a beaver who likes to surf. His brother Bub likes to nap. Together, they have the skills to save their island from a plan involving a gigantic refrigerator. (Eaton has clearly taken great delight in drawing a fridge the size of Graceland.) Children will know if this is their kind of humor when they hear that the story is about an evil refrigerator that threatens the planet. The pictures look, charmingly, like doodles readers might have sketched during a boring class. Some of the jokes are dumb. (BEAVER: “Something smells fishy….”

SEABIRDS: “That’s probably us.”) Some are transcendentally dumb. A pun about blueprints is set up with the precision of a rocket launch or a Rube Goldberg device. Not every punch line works, but halfway through, everything clicks into place, and the plot achieves the sort of energy that would have made Goldberg proud. The second book in the series, The Fishy Business (releasing simultaneously), is funny from the first panel. The laws of probability suggest that volume three will be a real achievement.

Some readers won’t make it through the most painful jokes, but those who do will see something marvelous building itself in front of their eyes. (Graphic novel. 6-9)

NEVER SAY GENIUS

Gutman, Dan Harper/HarperCollins (304 pp.) $16.99 | PLB $17.89 | Jan. 24, 2012 978-0-06-182767-9 978-0-06-182768-6 PLB Series: The Genius Files, 2 Twins Coke and Pepsi McDonald squeak through numerous murder attempts at roadside attractions across the Midwest and on eastward.

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After berating readers who skipped the opener, Mission Unstoppable (2011), Gutman picks up his unconventional cross-country travelogue where he left off. He takes the RV holding his 13-yearold brainiacs and their oblivious parents from the National Mustard Museum in Spring Green, Wisc., to the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C. Along the way, he pauses to suspend the sibs in French-fry cages over boiling oil outside the first McDonald’s, imprison them in glass vats of soft-serve ice cream at Ohio’s spectacular Cedar Point Amusement Park, lock them inside Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum (with a Megadeth track cranked up to mind-blowing level) and subject them to other perils. What’s up? It seems aptly named bad guy Archie Clone and other assassins are out to kill, or perhaps test, them before they can join a secret organization of child geniuses and collect a huge reward. Tucking in small photos, instructions for following the route on Google Maps, facts about attractions large and small and mysterious ciphered messages, the author brings his confused but resourceful youngsters to an explosive climax and a shocking revelation that guarantees further adventures on the road back to the left coast.

Nothing spices up a boring road trip like moments of extreme terror. (Adventure. 10-12)

TO THE MOUNTAINTOP My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement

Hunter-Gault, Charlayne Roaring Brook (208 pp.) $22.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-59643-605-3

Starting with the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009 and working back to the early 1960s, Hunter-Gault covers many of the significant moments in the civil rights movement, including her own pivotal role in desegregating the University of Georgia.

It was 1961, the year Barack Obama was born, and HunterGault and Hamilton “Hamp” Holmes became the first black students to enroll in the University of Georgia, confronting the racism at the core of the oldest public university in the United Sates. Hunter-Gault places their contribution in the larger context of the civil rights movement from 1960 through 1965, but she has trouble balancing her personal narrative with the many other stories she covers. Given the number of excellent volumes on the subject, this would have been a stronger contribution if Hunter-Gault had focused on her own story; as it is, the book is something of a hodge-podge. Her premise that the civil rights movement was launched in 1960 is questionable, given the many pioneers in the decades prior. Backmatter includes an extensive timeline, articles by other writers on issues of the movement and an extensive bibliography, but there is no mention of any of the excellent works on the subject available for young readers.

A missed opportunity to offer something special. (Nonfiction. 12 & up)

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GEORGE George Washington, Our Founding Father

Keating, Frank Illus. by Wimmer, Mike Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $16.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-4169-5482-8

By the age of 15, George Washington had written out a list of precepts taught to him by his teachers, the “Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation,” by which he lived and was guided throughout his life.

Excerpts from this little-known historical document appear throughout this stolid picture-book biography of our first president, in which Washington describes some salient details of his life and career in the first person. The rules are worthy, but readers will note that there is usually no relationship between them and the facts presented on the same page. While the volume is stirring, there is no cohesion to the narrative, and it will not even serve report writers, as most dates and events go unmentioned, as do many highlights of Washington’s story. Only the notes to the artwork provide some factual context. Young readers wondering if Washington ever faced any setbacks will find no evidence of them here. What emerges from these pages is a larger-than-life icon with no warts. Wimmer’s paintings are masterful and dramatic, though some seem stiffly posed. The cover portrait is certainly rousing.

Washington remains an historic hero despite flaws and defeats. These are recounted in far more accomplished biographies, and children will be better served by reading about the real man elsewhere. (author’s note, artist’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 8-11)

IN DARKNESS

Lake, Nick Bloomsbury (352 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 17, 2012 978-1-59990-743-7 A tale of two Haitis—one modern, one historic—deftly intertwine in a novel for teens and adults.

Readers first meet Shorty under the rubble of the recent earthquake, as he struggles to make sense of his past, present and future. Through flashbacks, they learn of his gangster life in a dangerous Port-au-Prince slum, where he searches for his twin sister, Marguerite, after they’ve been separated by gang violence. In his stressed state, Shorty communes with the spirit of Toussaint l’Ouverture, leader of the slave uprising that ultimately transformed Haiti into the world’s first black republic.

Lake (Blood Ninja II: The Revenge of Lord Oda, 2010, etc.) adeptly alternates chapters between “Now” (post-earthquake) and “Then” (circa turn-of-the-19th century). His minimalist, |

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poetic style reveals respect for vodou culture, as well as startling truths: “In darkness, I count my blessings like Manman taught me. One: I am alive. Two: there is no two.” While the images of slavery and slum brutality are not for the faint-hearted, and Shorty’s view of humanitarian workers may stir debate, readers will be inspired to learn more about Haiti’s complex history.

Timed for the second anniversary of the Haitian earthquake, this double-helix-of-a-story explores the nature of freedom, humanity, survival and hope.

A dark journey well worth taking—engrossing, disturbing, illuminating. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)

FLYAWAY

Landalf, Helen Harcourt (176 pp.) $16.99 | Dec. 19, 2011 978-0-547-51973-9 Sometimes the way to help others begins with helping yourself.

After her nightclub-dancer mom disappears from their Seattle apartment in this short, compelling debut, 15-year-old Stevie (named for the Fleetwood Mac singer) moves in with her Aunt Mindy for the summer rather than face child protective services. She struggles with her allegiance to her mother, whom she discovers has a crystal meth addiction, and Aunt Mindy, a tidy, nurturing yoga instructor. Also at odds are her feelings for “the Professor,” a smart fellow student she’s been crushing on, and Alan, a dropout who’s been in and out of foster homes all his life and is now finding his way as an assistant at a bird-rescue center. Because of the story’s length, some characters never fully develop, and resolutions come too quickly.

So when Stevie catches the previously straightlaced Professor dabbling in drugs like a pro and she takes interest in an injured robin, it’s no surprise that she starts a relationship with Alan. But the birds serve a narrative purpose, symbolizing Stevie’s need for healing and to take flight away from her abusive home life. When her mother returns from an interrupted stint in rehab, she must decide who is part of her healing process.

For teens who want a realistic story but not the heft and extreme grittiness of Ellen Hopkins. (Fiction. 14-18)

Z: ZOMBIE STORIES

Lassen, J. M. --Ed. Night Shade (300 pp.) $12.99 paperback | $12.99 e-book Jan. 1, 2012 978-1-59780-312-0 978-1-59780-313-7 e-book Another anthology shambles onto the zombie bandwagon.

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with Jonathan Mayberry’s stellar “Family Business,” which was rewritten as the opening of Rot & Ruin (2010). Starting an anthology with by far its best offering, sadly, makes all the other entries suffer in comparison. Despite the unflattering basis for comparison, there’s plenty of solid brain-eating goodies here, from Kelly Link’s tale of a boy who screws up exhuming his dead girlfriend to Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s upsetting and sharply graphic tale of an abused and murdered teen prostitute looking for her own sort of closure.

Scott Nicholson’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” ruins a perfectly good zombie horror with its stereotypes of Appalachians as ignorant, racist hicks who can’t decide if zombism is an “Aye-rab bug” or plague of sinners whose “souls are roasting under Hell.” Other contributors successfully mine the gore and grotesquerie of undeath for Viking feminist empowerment tales (Christine Morgan), poignant stories of shambling love (Catherynne M. Valente), pirate adventures (Thomas S. Roche) or just gleefully gross thrills (Marie Atkins).

For those zombie enthusiasts who haven’t already collected the other anthologies in which most of these were previously published. (Horror. 14 & up)

ALIENATION A C.H.A.O.S. Novel

Lewis, Jon S. Thomas Nelson (272 pp.) $14.99 | Jan. 3, 2012 978-1-59554-754-5 Series: C.H.A.O.S. Novels, 2

In this sequel to Invasion (2010), Lewis continues the series opener’s breakneck pace, fascination with gadgetry, improbable alien creatures and comic-book logic.

Young hero Colt is back with pals Oz and Danielle, only this time they’re headed to the CHAOS Military Academy (Central Headquarters Against the Occult and Supernatural). Colt’s Grandpa, a World War II hero, is the real-life basis for the Phantom Fighter, a comic-book character, and life often imitates the comics here, as when Grandpa’s car suddenly sprouts Gatling guns on each side of the hood, among other modifications. Early on, Colt learns through a memory extraction that he has been injected with the blood of the Thule, aliens who resemble six-armed walking reptiles. According to their legends, he is the “Betrayer.” The omniscient narration is usually filtered through Colt’s perspective, but there are interludes in which the stories of others are followed. Presumably this is meant to heighten suspense, but it simply manages to push the plot beyond credibility. The romance that leavened the first book is missing, and such gadgetry as “concrete foam,” two-way radio transceivers implanted in the auditory canal and clothing constructed with nanotechnology overtake the plot. The illustrations that would be integral to actual comics are sorely missed, and the simple descriptions of such improbable doings leave a lot to be desired. The ending is open for further adventures, with the Thule still threatening.

Action? Yes. Sense? Not hardly. (Thriller. 10-15)

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50 UNDERWEAR QUESTIONS A Bare-All History

Lloyd Kyi, Tanya Illus. by Kinnaird, Ross Annick Press (116 pp.) $21.95 | paper $12.95 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-55451-353-6 978-1-55451-352-9 paperback

Snappy writing gives this history some “briefs” appeal, but it’s too scantily

clad in specifics.

“We all own it. We all wear it. We all wash it. (At least, I hope we do!)” Lloyd Kyi follows up 50 Burning Questions: A Sizzling History of Fire (2010) with a like number of posers on styles and changing fashions of undies worldwide and through history—though her view of the topic is broad enough to include mentions of loincloths, chain mail and other items more often worn as outerwear. She slips from the goatskin garment worn by the prehistoric “Iceman” and the mawashi that Japanese sumo wrestlers sport to contemporary undershorts with pockets for cellphones and the “union suit gone cyber” that astronauts wear while spacewalking. As colorful as her general observations and terse anecdotes are, though, there isn’t much substance or system to her study—readers curious about the etymology of “skivvies” or “g-strings,” what the “bejeweled undershirts” that were outlawed in London at some unspecified time looked like or the nature of the athletic “technology” developed by Under Armour will be left in the dark. Even when she does go into detail about, for instance, farthingales or how the Papua New Guinea women’s maro displays marital status, instead of a helpful archival or other illustration, Kinnaird’s cartoon images supply only jokey filler.

A popular subject, but Lloyd Kyi never gets to the bottom of it. (further reading, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 8-12)

THE LOWDOWN ON DENIM

Lloyd Kyi, Tanya Illus. by Hanmer, Clayton Annick Press (112 pp.) $21.95 | paper $12.95 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-55451-355-0 978-1-55451-354-3 paperback

A lighthearted look at the history of everyone’s favorite pants couched as a detention report written by a couple of middle-school pranksters.

With lively language and amusing anecdotes, Lloyd Kyi (50 Burning Questions, 2010, etc.) turns a product history into an engaging romp through time. From denim’s origins as durable material for mid-19th-century work clothes to the celebrity fashions of today, the author traces both our changing clothing needs and outside influences on what we wear. She gives credit not only to Levi Strauss but also to Nevadan Jacob Davis, who came up with the idea of seams reinforced with rivets. Hanmer’s cartoons place skateboarding storytellers JD and Shred in historical venues, but with modern reactions. Appropriately, Shred, a girl, wears skirts until the 1950s. Full-page, full-color kirkusreviews.com

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cartoons begin each chapter. Smaller ones shaded with blues grace every page. Along with informative sidebars (printed on scraps of denim with the familiar brass rivets and orange stitching), they break up the text into accessible chunks. The inviting design begins with the cover illustration of baggy low-riders.

Libraries that have already purchased Tony Johnston and Stacy Innerst’s Levi Strauss Gets a Bright Idea (2011) will also want this for older readers and for its more thorough account.

Humor and information combine in appealing nonfiction for middle-grade and middle-school readers. (further reading, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-13)

PLANESRUNNER

McDonald, Ian Pyr/Prometheus Books (290 pp.) $16.95 | $9.99 e-book | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-61614-541-5 978-1-61614-542-2 e-book Series: Everness, 1 Science fiction rules in this stellar series opener about a boy who travels to parallel universes.

What joy to find science fiction based on real scientific concepts. Fourteen-year-old Everett Singh sees his physicist father kidnapped from a London street and learns that he’ll have to travel to another universe to save him. Dad cleverly sends Everett a map to the multiverse, knowing that Everett has the smarts to decipher it. Dr. Singh invented the “Heisenberg Gate” that allows travel between worlds, leading to the discovery of nine parallel Earths. Everett sneaks through the gate to get to a parallel London, where he meets Sen, a scrappy girl, and her airship crew, who will help him rescue his father. Meanwhile, he must evade the powerful politician who wants his map. In his debut for teens, established science-fiction writer McDonald builds a world just different enough to charm readers into believing, populating it with entertaining, quirky characters, spicing up the story with Punjabi cooking and a secret dialect (complete with glossary) and explaining the multiverse theory in readily comprehensible terms. Suspense rules, and Everett’s advantages come from both his football goalie skills and his intelligence.

Shining imagination, pulsing suspense and sparkling writing make this one stand out. As Sen would say, “fantabulosa bona.” (Science fiction. 12-16)

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THE SON OF NEPTUNE

Riordan, Rick Disney Hyperion (544 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 4, 2011 978-1-4231-4059-7 Series: The Heroes of Olympus, 2 After spinning his wheels in series opener The Lost Hero (2010), Riordan regains his traction with book two of The Heroes of Olympus.

Gaea is raising an army of giants to defeat the gods, and Juno has switched heroes Percy Jackson (son of Poseidon) and Jason Grace (son of Jupiter) in order to unite Greek and Roman gods and demigods in battle against her. His memory wiped, Percy knows only that he has another life and a girlfriend, Annabeth; he needs to focus now on winning the trust of the Roman demigods. As per usual, he has two appealing companions with intriguing back stories, Hazel Levesque (daughter of Pluto) and Frank Zhang (son of…?). The three undertake a quest to Alaska to defeat the giant Alcyoneus and free Thanatos, “the border patrol” of the Underworld, assisted and opposed along the way by a pleasing variety of magical beings. Riordan achieves freshness within his formula by giving characters and readers a new environment—Camp Jupiter, similar only in broad concept to Camp Half-Blood— to discover, and his pell-mell pacing has returned. As with all of Riordan’s mythological tales, the details that bring the legends into the 21st century delight: The camp’s augur reads the entrails of Beanie Babies; tiny, malignant grain spirits dissolve into Chex Mix; the Amazons’ headquarters are in Seattle at, well, you guessed it.

Should pacing and wit continue unabated into the third volume, whose foretold European setting promises further freshness, fans will eagerly await numbers four and five. (Fantasy. 10-14)

HAVOC

Sampson, Jeff Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 24, 2012 978-0-06-199278-0 Series: The Deviants, 2 The second exciting installment in the continuing saga of a dorky daytime girl who morphs into a savvy, hot chick and/or werewolf at night.

New readers are given enough information here to follow the plot, but they won’t enjoy its full impact unless they have read the first book. Emily still feels guilty about killing, as a werewolf, the scientist who murdered another of her wolf pack. At least, she feels guilty in the daytime. At night, she learns that she can choose among any of her three personae: dork, fearless chick or wolf. However, a new element threatens her now: After dark, terrifying shadow men |

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“As long as you are not on the receiving end, scams are enormously entertaining.” from duped

appear to be stalking her, even in her own bedroom. Meanwhile, Dalton, another werewolf in her pack, recovers from his gunshot wound. The two of them track down another female werewolf, then, with the full pack, they break into the research facility that Emily suspects made them werewolves in the first place. There, Emily finds a major surprise. She also learns that she’s the alpha wolf in the pack, the leader responsible for all the others. Sampson employs a fluid writing style that charges into the story, especially when he writes as the aggressive Nighttime Emily. His characters stand out well as individuals, but suspense is the main attraction here.

Plenty of thrilling action, clearly with more to come.

(Paranormal thriller. 12 & up)

DUPED True Stories of the World’s Best Swindlers

Schroeder, Andreas Illus. by Simard, Rémy Annick Press (158 pp.) $21.95 | paper $12.95 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-55451-351-2 978-1-55451-350-5 paperback Schroeder unfurls eight stellar scams— perpetrated from the Philippines to your Phillips radio—that shook the gullible for all they were worth.

As long as you are not on the receiving end, scams are enormously entertaining. Here readers learn of the Tasaday deception, the 18th-century Shakespeare fraud (with its sad father-son conflict), Orson Welles’ radio hysteria (said Orson: “Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan”), along with plenty of plain old swindles serving as cautionary tales that we may never learn from, as greed, need and desperation always have the upper hand. What makes Schroeder’s presentation of these bamboozlements so pleasurable—other than the gotcha! factor—is the clarity of his narrative, the unhurried exploration of the dupe and the fact that the only things that get hurt here are egos and pocketbooks. He has also chosen the fleecings for their color—of the P.T. Barnum sort—rather than the darker work of Enron or no-bid military contracts. Simard’s accompanying artwork lays out in grayscale the raw bones of the flimflams, driving home the salient moments when the ruse worked and then when things went south.

A solid yet playful tour of the huckster’s world. (Nonfiction. 9-13)

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THE CRAZY THINGS GIRLS DO FOR LOVE

Sheldon, Dyan Candlewick (352 pp.) $15.99 | Dec. 13, 2011 978-0-7636-5018-6

Superior comic writing combined with a major snark factor turns this fullon chick-lit outing into major fun.

Fashion addict Sicilee and her despised mega-rival, artsy Maya, dominate the popular set of their high school. Meanwhile, the out group, including frumpy Waneeda and eco-warrior Clemens, live in obscurity, eating at the nerd table in the cafeteria. Enter new student Cody, the most pulse-throbbing, eyeball-popping, drop-dead gorgeous boy anyone at the school has ever seen. Instantly, all the girls fall for him, including, secretly, Waneeda. Sicilee and Maya, however, enter an all-or-nothing war to snag Cody as a boyfriend. Suave, charming Cody, meanwhile, treats everyone the same, including the out group, but shows no interest in anything other than the nerdy environmental club. Sicilee and Maya focus their efforts into working for the formerly scorned club in their attempts to attract Cody, and they begin to find interests beyond their accustomed resolute superficiality. Sheldon lustily lampoons high-school social systems, flinging zinger metaphors onto nearly every page, such as describing the social hierarchy as “slightly more rigid than that of feudal Europe,” but she also gets under her characters’ skins. Despite the breezy tone, the story ends up with a hint of depth and an emphasis on going green.

Plenty of witty merriment for all high-school social sets. (Chick-lit comedy. 12-18)

MELODY BURNING

Strieber, Whitley Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt (224 pp.) $16.99 | Dec. 6, 2011 978-0-8050-9327-8 A ham-handed contemporary Phantom of the Opera that features a teen pop sensation and an agoraphobic boy by the adult author of The Wolfen (1978).

Teen singer and actress Melody McGrath wakes one night to find an attractive boy beside her bed. His name is Beresford, and he’s been living in the walls of her L.A. high rise since the day his father was murdered for trying to document the building’s violations. Instead of being understandably terrified, Melody is charmed, and the two fall in love immediately. They are torn apart when the building super discovers Beresford, and he is shipped off to foster care. Luckily, just before he is taken away, Beresford sees the basement bomb planted by the shady superintendent and his father’s murderer in order to collect a hefty insurance check. So he breaks out of juvie and arrives just in kirkusreviews.com

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time to save Melody from the burning building by crawling down the side, Spider-Man style. Stronger writing may have distracted readers from the plot’s sheer implausibility, but insipid lines such as, “ ‘Melody,’ he said in his heart, ‘if I die tonight, my last thought will be of you,’ “ and overuse of the words “beautiful” and “perfect” to describe everything from Melody’s eyes to Beresford’s muscles do little to help its case.

Too many sour notes in this melody. (Fiction. 12 & up)

THE SECRET SISTERHOOD OF HEARTBREAKERS

Weingarten, Lynn HarperTeen (352 pp.) $17.99 | Dec. 27, 2011 978-0-06-192618-1

High-school temptresses wield magic to emancipate a lovelorn girl from her pain in this finely wrought tale.

Weingarten (Wherever Nina Lies, 2010) begins like the Old Testament, an apt reference for a story rich with spirituality and what are for sophomore, Lucy Wrenn, challenges of biblical proportions. Lucy is desperate to win back Alex, who dumps her on the first day of school. In sentient and original metaphors, Weingarten evokes the poignancy of unrequited love so well that readers will cheer Lucy on in her mission to satisfy the mandates of the trio of glamorous girls comprising the eponymous sisterhood. Lucy can thus attain enchantments to use on Alex. The tale has its Mean Girls moments when Lucy’s teetering virtues shine through, but nothing is entirely what it seems and readers can determine themselves whether the sisters are friends or foes. Shy and unassuming, Lucy struggles to flirt as instructed, in hopes of joining their ranks, and readers who enjoy fashion and cosmetics will relish her physical transformation. Lucy’s journey celebrates the complexities of friendship and family and teaches her to appreciate the ordinary. Surprises and close calls abound as Lucy’s priorities evolve and Weingarten raises questions teens will enjoy considering.

An exciting and inspirational must-read that begs a sequel. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)

THE QUEEN OF KENTUCKY

Whitaker, Alecia Poppy/Little, Brown (384 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 2, 2012 978-0-316-12506-2

taking on the new, more sophisticated (to her ears) moniker of Ericka. Swiftly getting the lay of the high-school land, Ricki Jo decides that she wants to move with the popular girls. She tries out for cheerleading rather than band, buys hipper clothing and jettisons the real Bible for that subversive gospel according to Seventeen. Her new friends are a little faster than she’s used to, and she begins a rather daring (for her) flirtation with the handsome-and-he-knows-it David Wolfenbaker. All these changes displease her neighbor and best friend, Luke Foster, a grounded guy who is struggling with the more serious issue of his father’s alcoholism and abuse. In her debut, Whitaker paints a vivid, finely detailed picture of life in the sometime-hardscrabble heartland. But what draws the reader in is the chaotic precision of her characters, youngsters who are conflicted and frequently inconsistent, yet feel rounded and real.

Solid, just like its setting. (Fiction. 12 & up)

HOW TO SAVE A LIFE

Zarr, Sara Little, Brown (352 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 18, 2011 978-0-316-03606-1

Still reeling from the death of her father, 17-year-old Jill resents her mother’s plan to adopt a new baby. When soon-to-be birth mother Mandy arrives, she brings with her more than any of them imagined.

Struggling with the loss of her like-minded father, guilt over her failings as a daughter and her heart, which she fears is permanently sealed, Jill is determined to dislike Mandy. Her resentment, fueled by inconsistencies in the young mother’s story, drives her to find an investigator. When a startling phone call exposes Mandy’s darkest secrets, Jill finds herself more confused than ever. Mandy, who knows firsthand what it is like to grow up unwanted and unloved, is determined to find a better life for her baby. But what if, in the meantime, she can find a better life for herself? Told from the perspectives of both Jill and Mandy in alternating chapters, this moving story explores love, loss and whether a family can be more than the sum of its parts. Jill’s cynicism is the perfect counterpart to Mandy’s hopeful naiveté. Likewise, Mandy’s vulnerability highlights Jill’s tough independence. Woven together from two simple threads, the resulting tapestry is as beautiful as it is real.

A story that will resonate beyond its final page. (Fiction. 12 & up)

Set in small-town Kentucky, this coming-of-age story depicts the ups and downs of 14-year-old Ricki Jo Winstead as she tries on a new identity.

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h maggie stiefvater The Scorpio Races

Maggie Stiefvater Scholastic (416 pp. ) $17.99 Oct. 18, 2011 978-0-545-22490-1

Going against all odds is a trial not uncommon for the underdog. Pit that underdog against nay-saying traditionalists, carnivorous water horses and a co-competitor who just might be a love interest, and it’s anything but common.

On the rocky, rustic island of Thisby in the Scorpio Sea, it’s the time of year when the legendary water horses, the capaill uisce, emerge from the sea, teeth gnashing. It’s also the time for The Scorpio Races, in which select men of the island mount these bloodhungry steeds for a race that is as saturated with fear and death as it is with blood and tradition.

This year is different. Puck, a spirited young girl grappling to keep hold on her home and her brother, becomes the first female to enter the races. Strong and silent Sean, a repeat champion of the races with his own desperate need to win, unexpectedly takes Puck under his wing as they both train for a race that only one of them can win—and that neither of them might survive. Maggie Stiefvater talks about her own passion for impossible situations, character parallels and happy endings.

Q: As the adage says, we write what we know, so the strong, determined and tangible pride in Sean and Puck doesn’t come from nothing. When you were of a comparable age, what did you fight for with such rigor as they do to win the races?

A: My childhood was dictated by my strict but supportive parents. We were allowed to do nearly anything as long as we earned the privilege. So, like Sean and Puck, my older sister and I were horse lovers. When I was around 13, we worked for a year to earn the money both for a horse and for a fence, and then we single-handedly built the fence and converted our garage to a barn for our two horses, which were terrible creatures, by the way.

You get what you pay for, and what we got was two fresh-off-the-track racehorses with about seven legs between the two of them. It was the hardest I’d ever worked for something in my life, and after that success, I became passionate about throwing myself into impossible situations—going to college at 16, playing the bagpipes competitively, touring with my band, becoming a writer.

A: In a lot of ways, The Scorpio Races is my most honest novel. Both of my brothers appear in its pages. One of them was a Gabe, and yes, at the time, I felt utterly betrayed. It took me a year to realize what Puck realizes during the course of the novel—that sometimes 2024

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Q: Peg Gratton plays second fiddle only to Puck in terms of a prominent, intriguing female character. She is salty, protective, maternal, attractive and tough as nails.

Where did you find her?

A: I love to play with parallels in my books, and one of my favorite things to do is to parallel a teen character with an adult character. Peg is one possibility for Puck’s future.

Q: There is a constant push and pull between predator and prey, male and female and paganism and Christianity in the story. What do you see as a fiercer battle?

A: In this novel, I very much wanted to look at the arbitrary names that we humans like to give things and how untrue they can be. The battles come when we refuse to look at how the lines blur.

Those pairs—predator/prey, masculine/feminine, spirituality/religion—aren’t really opposites, and in the novel, they frequently refer to the same object. The fiercest battle? When our eyes tell us one thing, and our heart tells us something else.

Q: Would you ride Dove the land horse or Corr the water horse in the races, and why?

A: Corr. I’ve ridden Dove, and I like to try new things.

Q: Atreyu and Artax (The NeverEnding Story), or Mattie Ross and Little Blackie (True Grit)?

A: Oh, Atreyu and Artax. I’m all for happy endings.

–By Gordon West

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p hoto © K AT E HU MME L

Q: One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the novel is Gabe’s looming abandonment of Puck and their brother Finn for the mainland. Have you ever been betrayed by a Gabe, and what were the circumstances?

family needs to leave in order to have their coming-ofage journey, and that that leaving doesn’t mean that they love us any less. Also, though it never seems like it at the time, Gabes often come back. If not for good, at least for a visit.

2011 pop-up round-up

Packaged in a die-cut red slipcase and, if not so spectacular and diverse in its special effects as the author’s ABC3D (2008), still an ingenious little gem. (Pop-up picture book. 4-6, adult)

FORTUNE COOKIES

Bitterman, Albert Illus. by Raschka, Chris Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (28 pp.) $14.99 | Jan. 4, 2011 978-1416968146

SUPER SCIENCE: FEEL THE FORCE! Full of Pop-up Physics Fun!

Adams, Tom Illus. by Flintham, Thomas Templar/Candlewick (20 pp.) $18.99 | Sep. 1, 2011 978-0-7636-5566-2

A quick and cheery tour of physical science, animated both by bright cartoon illustrations and a variety of pop-ups and moving parts.

With an appropriately kinetic mix of colors and visual angles, easily digestible blocks of commentary combine with an array of sliders, pull tabs, 3-D items, flaps and glued-in minibooks. Each spread covers a force or phenomenon from friction and pressure to light, magnetism and electricity. Along with short but coherent explanations of general principles, Adams tucks in introductions to four significant scientists of the past and also an occasional easy-toreproduce demonstration. An elastic band on the “Sound” spread won’t last long and some flaps (which also tend not to last long when young children are around) have significant passages of text printed on them, but overall the features are cleverly designed. A squirt gun shoots a column of paper “water,” a Frankenstein’s monster comes to life with the pull of a tab and a schematic electric circuit will either “light” a bulb or fail to if interrupted by an insulating ducky.

The presentation as a whole offers a painless dose of physics for either total novices or older readers in need of a refresher.

A fragile but engaging look at “the science of how stuff… interacts with energy.” (Pop-up nonfiction. 8-10)

Seven fortune cookies guide a young child through an eventful week in this elegantly spare collaboration between a debut author and a Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator.

Sliding out of its cookie with the pull of a tab that is the sole type of engineered effect, each fortune presages a subsequent occurrence. Sunday’s “Today you will lose something you don’t need” leads to a lost tooth and a dollar, for instance, and Monday’s “Money is like the wind” induces the young narrator—depicted in Raschka’s usual broad, Zen-like brushwork as a girl with orange locks over apple cheeks and a bright red shift—to buy a kite. Subsequent fortunes lead to a cat that vanishes, but then after a rainy day and a wish on a falling star (“Be careful what you wish for”) it reappears. With seven kittens. “All my fortunes are here to stay!” the child gleefully concludes, naming each kitten after a day of the week. Only carping critics (and dismayed parents) will wonder what happens next.

A buoyant celebration of pure, unalloyed joy. (Pop-up picture book. 4-7)

COLOR PLAY! An Interactive Pop Art Book Britto, Romero Illus. by Britto, Romero Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (12 pp.) $10.99 | Apr. 5, 2011 978-1-4169-9622-4

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Bataille, Marion Neal Porter/Roaring Brook (22 pp.) $14.99 | Aug. 30, 2011 978-1-59643-682-4 Clever paper engineering delivers a count-up that is simultaneously a countdown.

Presented as a stark set of big black numbers on small, square, plain white pages, the digits “01” switch places to become “10” with the opening of a gatefold flap with an inset piece that pivots so it becomes part of the new number on the other side. The ensuing “2” loses its bottom bar and becomes a “9” thanks to a similar contrivance and so on—until the progression reverses as “5” and “6” turn out to be mirror versions of each other, and succeeding numbers likewise match their earlier mates up to the final “10”—”01”. The simplicity of the concept belies the subtle, ingenious ways that Bataille designs each number to make the transformations seem simple and unforced. |

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A Brazilian-born pop artist invites children to customize seven scenes by dropping cardboard “coins” down slots to match up with die-cut holes.

Constructed of thick lines separating areas decorated in loud colors and patterns, the semiabstract patchwork pictures feature a rising sun, a cow and other farm animals, an apple tree and, at the end, a starry sky. Each has one or two small holes that can be filled by any of a dozen detachable disks mounted on the rear cover. For extra visual pizzazz, the inserts are brightly patterned as well. Though the holes are too inconspicuous to give the dropped-in “play pieces” much visual impact and the accompanying commentary runs to lines like “Holly the Horse looks a little goofy! / Her mane is usually bright and poofy,” the art is infectiously bright and energetic, and the extra-heavy cardboard pages should stand up to rough usage—or least as long as it will take to lose all of the color inserts. Because the |

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“Alas, Juarez doesn’t depict Gulliver’s piddle-save of Lilliput’s burning palace (the narrator describes it well enough, though).” from jonathan swift’s gulliver’s travels

small pieces are potential choking hazards (not labeled as such, though), toddlers in the vicinity should be carefully supervised.

An exercise in early physical dexterity with plenty of visual stimulation as a bonus. (Toy book. 1-3)

JONATHAN SWIFT’S GULLIVER’S TRAVELS Castor, Harriet Illus. by Juarez, Fernando Sterling (28 pp.) $19.95 | Jan. 1, 2011 978-1-84732-556-3

RAZZLE-DAZZLE RUBY

Stylish caricatures do more than the odd pop-up or tipped-in booklet to enhance this expertly retold version of the hapless traveler’s misadventures.

Preserving the original’s major incidents and satiric agenda, as well as the general flavor of Swift’s language, Castor’s retelling frames Gulliver’s account of visits to Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, Glubbdubdrib and the land of the equine Houyhnhnm as one long outing rather than separate voyages. Alas, Juarez doesn’t depict Gulliver’s piddle-save of Lilliput’s burning palace (the narrator describes it well enough, though). Otherwise, his spread-filling, meticulously detailed cartoons depict all of the supposedly exotic peoples Gulliver meets—except for the equine Houyhnhnm—as recognizably human types endowed with comically exaggerated expressions and, often, wildly baroque versions of 18th-century dress (or in the case of the Yahoos, discreet undress). Except for a truly Brobdingnagian pop-up hand reaching down for the startled narrator, the special features are a scant and unremarkable assortment of sliders, flaps and glued-in minibooks.

Readers who might find the original classic too long or savage will get satisfying doses of both Gulliver’s experiences and Swift’s dim view of human nature. (Pop-up abridged classic. 10-13)

AMAZING POP-UP TRUCKS

Crowther, Robert Illus. by Crowther, Robert Candlewick (10 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 1, 2011 978-0-7636-5587-7

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D’yans, Masha Illus. by D’yans, Masha Scholastic (20 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2011 978-0-545-22500-7

Waking up in a “razzle-dazzle mood,” young Ruby dances outside for wintry adventures as a “gleaming-beaming snow queen” in this high-energy debut.

Moving elements driven by spinners, sliders and pull tabs augment snowy settings laid out in collage and vivid watercolor on visibly rough-textured paper. D’Yans takes her big-eyed, pinkcheeked lass on a set of mini-adventures involving a menacing (but not really) snowman, a friendly neighboring “foot soldier” named Zac and a canine “knight in barking armor” before returning her to a homey “castle” to plan future outings. Though one of the pullout tabs is the long, slender sort that bends almost immediately and other effects are underwhelming, a tree laden with sparkling foil stars puts on a fetching show, and one particularly effective spread features Ruby and Zac waving arms and legs to make snow angels.

Younger children will also get a charge out of removing Ruby’s outdoor clothing layer by layer in the closing scene.

An uneven but exuberant outing, with occasional embossed flights of snowflakes adding further shine. (Pop-up picture book. 5-7)

LOVE THE BEASTIE A Spin-and-Play Book

Low production values and uninspired paper engineering keep this gallery of megatrucks in the garage.

Not only are the five central pop-ups—a Car Transporter, a “Concrete-Transport Truck,” a Monster Truck, a Garbage Truck and a multi-trailer Truck Train—so oversized that some need additional pats and massaging to open up, once fully expanded they mostly just sit there. They offer little in the way of moving parts beyond a tiny extending trough and flap-open doors on the cement truck (big whoopee) or a tab that pulls the Monster Truck all of three inches forward. Although weights and measures and much of the language have been Americanized from the original British English, 2026

some glitches remain. “Concrete-Transport trucks” is used instead of the more familiar “cement mixer,” for instance, and “Pneumatic Trucks” instead of “sewer cleaners.” Furthermore, the garbage truck is parked between a house and the two trash bins left outside, which makes no sense, and is also propped up with a pair of brick buttresses that seem to be present just to keep it from collapsing.

An inferior (though still engaging for the right audience) follow-up to the far better-made and more featurerich Amazing Pop-Up Big Machines (2010). (Pop-up nonfiction. 7-9)

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Drescher, Henrik Illus. by Drescher, Henrik Workman (11 pp.) $12.95 | Dec. 15, 2011 978-0-7611-6109-7

Having learned their lesson in Pat the Beastie (1993, reissued 2009), two formerly abusive children play nicer with their giant green pet in this follow up.

Happily, Drescher still goes for the gross-out. Following a reprise of the previous episode’s events, young Paul and Judy whirl out from the belly of the Beastie on a pull-tab tongue and take literal spins on the playground carousel (“It’s a Queasy-Nart!!” comments a little side figure, in a typical example of the level of humor here). They then stagger off to a game of lift-the-flap hide and seek, some tooth brushing, a kirkusreviews.com

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“The moving parts won’t survive much repeated manipulation, but fart jokes never get old (to some).” from love the beastie

bit of dress up and finally a gassy snuggle in bed beneath a scrap of fabric. Aside from one flat spread, each of the garishly colored cartoon scenes features a different add-on or moving part—from a glued-in booklet or a fuzzy stretch of tongue to a kaleidoscopic spinner and an unusual pull-out accordion fold. The moving parts won’t survive much repeated manipulation, but fart jokes never get old (to some).

Behavior modeling, with an occasional welcome snigger. (Pop-up picture book. 6-8)

reasonably nutritious “Recipes for a hungry giant (or 8 little kids)” on a flimsy detachable flier. Besides the aforementioned signboard, the sparse but well-designed moveable parts include a pull-up giant on the front cover, a swimming pool filled with chocolate milk that’s slurped up thanks to a pull tab and a big climactic pop-up of the nowsmiling giant contemplating a table filled with properly scaled chow.

The diminutive humans’ unhesitating generosity to one in need adds a warm glow to this gourmand’s delight. (Pop-up. 6-8)

BABY ANIMAL POP!

THE ODYSSEY A Pop-up Book

Flynn, Sarah Wassner National Geographic (20 pp.) $14.95 | Feb. 1, 2011 978-1-4263-0765-2 Pop-up pages big enough to contain full-size photos of a standing lamb and even most of a gamboling pony foal give this farmyard gallery outsized visual appeal.

The accompanying text is less eye-popping, though.

Each of five spreads opens up into a wordless outdoor scene printed on heavy, coated stock and featuring either an individual or (for the rabbits and ducks) a family portrait. In between are spreads filled with smaller photos and bite-sized bits of factual information presented in several levels of detail and type size.

That information ranges from the ingenuous “For piglets, life on the farm is like recess 24 hours a day!” to an inaccurate claim that ducks have no blood vessels in their feet. A gallery of famous sheep includes Dolly—with no explanation of what “cloned” actually means—and a “miracle” lamb supposedly born with “Allah” in Arabic script on its side. Furthermore, the tiny, faint type used for a recurrent “On the Menu” feature will promote eyestrain.

Plenty of 3-D eye candy, but the informational content needs work. (Pop-up nonfiction. 3-8)

HOW DO YOU FEED A HUNGRY GIANT?

Friedman, Caitlin Illus. by Nielsen, Shaw Workman (30 pp.) $18.95 | Oct. 1, 2011 978-0-7611-5752-6

A dismayed lad learns that 10 slices of pizza, 33 jars of peanut butter and 200 cookies are only hors d’oeuvres for a peckish giant. What to do?

Looking decidedly woebegone in Nielsen’s very simple, graphicstyle illustrations, the towering giant that silently appears in the backyard sports a reversible sign: “Food” on one side, “Please” on the other. With repeated choruses of “Seriously, you aren’t going to believe this,” and “It’s back to the kitchen for me,” the well-intentioned young narrator nearly empties his astonishingly well-stocked fridge. (His dog, Cowgirl, provides a running side commentary: “That’s one thirsty giant.”) Until, at last, Mom steps in and sets to work concocting a “Ginormous Blueberry Muffin,” “Mega-Pigs in Blankets” and like oversized dishes—all of which are provided with |

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Ita, Sam Illus. by Ita, Sam Sterling (8 pp.) $26.95 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-4027-5867-6

A highlight-reel version of Odysseus’ journey home, framed as a graphic novel and plastered with fantastically dramatic pop-ups and other special effects.

Opening with Penelope working on a tapestry that transforms into an entirely different scene with the drop of a step-flap, the tale plunges on into the many escapes of Odysseus and his crew: from Polyphemus, from Circe, the Sirens and (after visiting the land of the dead) from Scylla and Charybdis. Then it’s on to Ithaca for a slaughter of suitors with a bow strung with real string, peace at last after Zeus rears up to get everyone’s attention with a foil thunderbolt and a final clinch between Odysseus and Penelope as their connubial bed levitates to reveal the deep tree roots beneath. Ita (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 2008) tells the tale in balloons of colloquial dialogue (“Where have you been for the last twenty years?”

“Well, sweetheart, it’s an awfully long story”). Well-defined sequential panels give way to larger scenes of Polyphemus getting it in the eye with a sharpened log, of a ship with oars that row frantically with pulls of a tab, of Circe turning a man into a pig in a particularly masterful bit of paper engineering and other climactic moments. As transitions range from quick to nonexistent and the order in which gatefolds should be lifted isn’t always evident, some familiarity with the original is recommended—but even newbies will be riveted by this nonstop, high-energy retelling.

Homer himself would be agog. (Pop-up classic. 10-13)

3-D THEATER: OCEAN

Jewitt, Kathryn Illus. by Connell, Tom Kingfisher (20 pp.) $14.99 | Oct. 25, 2011 978-0-7534-6466-3

Four paper dioramas teeming with sea life add a visual boost to this otherwise quick and conventional tour of “the last great wilderness on Earth.”

Aside from a few colorful observations (“One little shrimp throws up glow-in-the-dark vomit in the face of attackers to confuse them!”), Jewitt’s captions and comments about fish and other |

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denizens of the oceans are so general and ordinary that readers will lose little by skipping them completely. Likewise, Connell’s painted specimens are all have a generic look—often garishly colored or lit, but slightly blurred and floating passively in isolation rather than interacting with their watery environments. Four of the 10 spreads feature four-layered underwater scenes (a reef, the open and deep oceans, and Antarctic waters) that are flanked by visual keys to the native denizens on display. Each pop-up is preceded by a flat spread with additional information and a superfluous second key. A companion, 3-D Theater: Rainforest, publishes simultaneously.

Uninspired, overall, though the 3-D scenes may supply young Cousteaus with a few moments of pleasant discovery.

(Pop-up nonfiction. 9-10)

CHRISTMAS IN THE MOUSE HOUSE

GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

Kneen, Maggie Illus. by Kneen, Maggie Templar/Candlewick (16 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 13, 2011 978-0-7636-5287-6 A large family of charming mice decorates its Christmas tree together in this pleasant holiday offering with sturdy, cardboard pages and a cleverly designed lift-the-flap and pop-up format.

The mouse father challenges his children to find the family’s 12 golden star ornaments, which the parents have hidden, and Grandma Mouse suggests the mouse children make additional ornaments of their own design. The little mice scatter throughout the wellappointed home to search for the missing golden stars, and in each room there are flaps to lift with clever surprises underneath, including stars on every spread. Cupboards and doors open, a canopy bed pops up and more mouse children appear inside unexpected hiding places. One of the last spreads shows the snowy garden outside, with the family tree waiting in its pot to be transformed with decorations and gifts. Young readers will enjoy lifting the flap that reveals the final golden star, as well as Santa Mouse coming through the garden gate.

The concluding spread includes a pop-up Christmas tree decorated with all 12 golden stars and the mouse-made creations. Tiny flaps under the tree open to show the presents for the mouse children, who dance around the tree with their parents in a cozy conclusion.

A simple but real story and charming, polished illustrations of appealing mice elevate this above most holiday stories with a movable format. (Picture book. 2-6)

LEGENDARY JOURNEYS: SHIPS

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It’s hard to believe that a pop-up wasn’t the creators’ original intention, so seamlessly do moveable parts dovetail into this modern classic’s storyline.

In contrast to the tale’s 1998 pop-up version, the figures here move on every page, and with an unusually graceful naturalism to boot. From pulling down Big Nutbrown Hare’s ears on the opening spread to make sure he’s listening to drowsily turning his head to accept a final good-night kiss in a multi-leveled pull-down tableau at the close, all of Little Nutbrown Hare’s hops, stretches and small gestures serve the poetically spare text—as do Big Nutbrown’s wider, higher responses to his charge’s challenges. As readers turn a flap to read Big Nutbrown’s “But I love you this much,” his arms extend to demonstrate. The emotional connection between the two hares is clearer than ever in Jeram’s peaceful, restrained outdoor scenes, which are slightly larger than those in the trade edition, and the closing scene is made even more intimate by hiding the closing line (“I love you right up to the moon— and back”) until an inconspicuous flap is opened up.

The book is available in just about every format—but this is the perfect one. (Pop-up picture book. 3-6)

UNDER THE HOOD

A handsome, if scattershot, nautical history from ancient Egyptian reed boats to today’s nearly half-mile-long container ships. |

McBratney, Sam Illus. by Jeram, Anita Candlewick (16 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 1, 2011 978-0-7636-5378-1

Merlin, Christophe Illus. by Merlin, Christophe Candlewick (14 pp.) $14.99 | Oct. 1, 2011 978-0-7636-5535-8

Lavery, Brian Illus. by Lavery, Brian Kingfisher (32 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 1, 2011 978-0-7534-6681-0

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Surrounded by smaller new or period images of pirate flags, maps, posters, cargo, sailors’ knots, battles, interior views and other sidelights, the central paintings offer staid but sharply detailed portraits of one or more seagoing vessels. Many of these, capped by a table-covering, 42-inch view of the Titanic, are dramatically lengthened by double-layered slide-out side panels. Most of the ships are only seen from the waterline up, though an occasional small flap lifts to reveal generic glimpses of inside areas or structures. Lavery occasionally lets his nautical language slip (a trireme’s ram could puncture “the side of an enemy ship”), and the scattered captions and blocks of commentary supply little beyond random observations, plus assorted facts about significant ocean voyages and vessels.

Light on nautical lore and jargon, but like its companion, Legendary Journeys: Trains (2010), the art will fascinate casual browsers. (Pop-up nonfiction. 8-13)

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In this witty, flap-happy episode, a crew of lazy mechanics fix Mr. Bear’s car—but only temporarily. kirkusreviews.com

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“Huge, extravagantly designed and detailed pop-up illustrations for 10 classic cautionary tales showcase a trio of uncommon talents.” from aesop’s fables

Reminiscent of The Elephant’s Wish (1959) and other Bruno Munari classics, each card-stock leaf features cartoon scenes created with what look like unevenly inked woodcuts and, to create visual punch lines, large nested flaps to lift. Mr. Bear must roust out an overall-clad mouse, trace his car’s strange noise to a flatulent crocodile hiding in the boot and, in a foldout spread, place the vehicle on a hoist to spot an oil leak. Mr. Bear then packs up his openable toolbox and takes a spin— past an armored car (driven by robbers), a low-rider with elevator shocks and other traffic. Then an ill-advised race with an elephant motorcyclist ends in a cloud of smoke, and it’s time to call the tow truck. Captioned with brief and largely superfluous comments or exclamations, the art, despite its retro look, will amuse younger readers and pre-readers alike with its low-tech interactivity and annoyed ursine protagonist.

A droll visit to a garage that’s anything but five-star.

(Lift-the-flap picture book. 5-7)

realistic but broadly expressive animal figures. Many of these, particularly the wonderfully snarky-looking goose laying goldfoil eggs and the frantic, massive lion that lunges up at viewers through an entangling net as his spread opens, will elicit involuntary “Whoa”s of startled admiration. The fables, one per opening except for a miraculously un-crowded quintet gathered on the central spread, are paired to large central tableaux and smaller but only slightly less complex pop-ups in corner booklets. All are pithy versions of the usual Aesopian suspects written in a fluid, contemporary style (“You do indeed have a beautiful voice,” the fox assures the cheeseless crow, “but you don’t seem to have a brain!”) with some morals embedded and others laid out explicitly. Veteran paper engineer that he is, Moerbeek concocts ingeniously multilayered, interwoven constructions that are vulnerable to grabby little hands but, with careful supervision, sturdy enough to survive multiple shared readings.

Timeless wisdom, splendidly decked out. (Pop-up fables. 6-10)

COUNT 1 TO 10 A Pop-Up Book

PUSS IN BOOTS

Perrault, Charles Retold by Gurney, Stella Illus. by Kelley, Gerald Barron’s (24 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2011 978-0-7641-6485-9

Moerbeek, Kees Illus. by Moerbeek, Kees Abrams (20 pp.) $15.95 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8109-9644-1 A showpiece of popup design features the numbers one through 10 worked into multileveled constructs of dazzling virtuosity.

Made from brightly colored digits floating over contrasting monochromatic backgrounds (with increasing numbers of tiny ladybugs scattered throughout as extras), the pop-ups range from a die-cut “1” that rotates into place and a pair of “2”s folding out from behind a screen to phalanxes of “9”s and “10”s floating up as their spreads open. From a paper-engineering point of view, the interlocking “5”s and “8”s are particularly mind-bending—but every opening provides initial surprises, plenty of angles and spaces to explore and a rich visual experience. Though too fragile to survive long in the hands of the diapered brigade or on open library shelves, Moerbeek’s creations will stand up to, and reward, repeated careful use.

A grand way to promote art appreciation, as well as numeracy. (Pop-up. 5-12, adult)

AESOP’S FABLES

Illus. by Moerbeek, Kees & Beatrice, Chris & Whatley, Bruce Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (14 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 4, 2011 978-1-4169-7146-7

A wooden retelling of Perrault’s classic tale, with underwhelming movable parts.

Gurney embellishes the original plotline only by furnishing the Ogre with a back story (provided in a very small pasted-in booklet) and bestowing names on the kingdom and most of the characters. Her prose stumbles (“Puss pondered over [sic] the problem of Peter’s livelihood”), and her dialogue runs to stilted lines like, “We have seen your idea of work, Peter—it is to sit around all day playing your harmonica and idling.” Illustrator Kelley does his best to add plenty of visual panache, crafting painted scenes featuring a swashbuckling ginger puss plainly akin to the scene stealer from Shrek and cleverly manipulating a Disney-esque human cast. Such movable additions as a turnable water wheel, a pull tab that makes Puss lick his chops after devouring the ogre and even a culminating pop-up wedding tableau are, at best, routine, and they often feel like afterthoughts, enhancing neither the art nor the story.

This ageless trickster tale has a nicely subversive message, but this rendition lacks the panache to carry it off.

(Pop-up fairy tale. 8-10)

Huge, extravagantly designed and detailed pop-up illustrations for 10 classic cautionary tales showcase a trio of uncommon talents.

Beatrice and Whatley collaborate seamlessly on the visuals, producing in traditional outdoor or rural settings a cast of |

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DRAGONS & MONSTERS

solemn spreads. The lacy delicacy of the architectural and other details creates intricate visual mazes that positively compel long, close examination. Some spreads open flat, others to 90 degrees; each will transport viewers to another time and place, leaving them in a properly reflective, celebratory mood.

A grand display item, undeniably fragile but capable of surviving—and rewarding—multiple careful readings.

(Pop-up picture book/religion. 6-8, adult)

Reinhart, Matthew & Sabuda, Robert Illus. by Reinhart, Matthew & Sabuda, Robert Candlewick (12 pp.) $29.99 | Apr. 1, 2011 978-0-7636-3173-4 Series: Encyclopedia Mythologica, 3 A spectacular climax to the authors’ Encyclopedia Mythologica, offering a world-spanning gallery of ancient and modern monsters portrayed in thrilling 3-D. From the first opening, in which Medusa’s reptilian coiffure and toothy, masklike visage explode from the page, to the savagely grimacing yeti (a.k.a. “Himalayan Hulk”) rearing massively up in the finale, this cast of creatures will jolt even the most jaded monsterphiles. Using bright-red crepe paper for the Chinese dragon and a mottled, vibrant color scheme overall, Reinhart and Sabuda concoct some of the most complicated and ingenious pop-ups ever. There are six big headliners and, in two or three inset booklets per spread, smaller but no less melodramatic figures. These include a malign Sphinx that menaces Orpheus then transforms into Giza’s inscrutable stone monument, a dark-skinned George of Cappadocia spearing a dragon in a scene done in stained-glass-window style, a creepy zombie emerging from a grave and other nightmare fodder, from the Australian Bunyip to an Algonquian “Leech of Doom.” Appropriately red-blooded anecdotes and commentary (“Monsters dominate the world’s legends, hungrily prowling the landscapes of yore”) beneath lurid headers supply the cultural and historical background.

Fragile, as ever from these two artists (open and close slowly for best results), but another tour de force of paper engineering. (Pop-up folklore. 7-11)

CHANUKAH LIGHTS

Rosen, Michael J. Illus. by Sabuda, Robert Candlewick (16 pp.) $34.99 | Sep. 27, 2011 978-0-7636-5533-4

Dazzlingly intricate paper sculptures commemorate both the holiday and some of the settings in which it has been celebrated over the centuries since “Jewish freedom first was fought.”

Each night pairs a solemn passage from Rosen (“Tonight, the fifth night of Chanukah, our six lights flicker in a dark shtetl”) to a large, multi-leveled white structure that rises, unfolds and weaves into shape against a richly colored background as the spread is opened. An entire ship in full sail, a desert tent, a tenement building with pushcarts out front and laundry swaying on lines of string or, in the final scene, a high-rise city topped by nine slender skyscrapers capped with gold foil “flames” emerge in gloriously 2030

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THE SPLENDID SPOTTED SNAKE A Magic Ribbon Book

Schwartz, Betty Ann & Wilensky, Alexander Illus. by Rabin, Netta & Wilensky, Alexander & Conigliaro, Phil Workman (9 pp.) $13.95 | Oct. 1, 2011 978-0-7611-6360-2 Another animated introduction to colors from the creators of What Makes a Rainbow? (2000), using the same “Magic Ribbon” technique.

Here it’s a smiling snake that grows, thanks to strips of brightly spotted yellow ribbon that are cleverly interwoven back and forth through the stiff cardboard pages. Each turn pulls out a new length, with a new color: “He grew a little more… / He had green spots galore! / Then he grew again… // His spots were orange: Look at them!” Though the color scheme breaks down with the “orange” spots—which are actually peach-pink—the ribbons really do seem to grow as if by magic, and the succession of very simply painted outdoorsy settings in various seasons add sunny overtones to the cheery, rhymed text. In the end, “All his spots got kind of blended. / Yellow Snake thought, ‘This is splendid!’ “ Young children will agree—particularly as the ribbons (somehow) retract into their slots at the end, making repeat readings as intriguing as initial ones.

Sturdy, ingenious—and winning, despite the small color misstep. (Toy book/board book. 3-5)

This Issue’s Contributors # Marcie Bovetz • Carol Edwards • Laurie Flynn • Omar Gallaga • Carol Goldman • Heather L. Hepler • Jennifer Hubert • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Laura Jenkins • Deborah Kaplan • Angela Leeper • Peter Lewis • Daniel Meyer • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine • Shana Raphaeli • Melissa Riddle Chalos • Ronnie Rom • Mindy Schanback • Dean Schneider • Monica D. Wyatt

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TOO MUCH MAGIC Pulling the Plug on the Cult of Tech: Secrets They Won’t Tell You About Your Digital Life

Benlevi, Jason Contrarian (379 pp.) $18.95 paperback | $9.99 e-book Apr. 28, 2011 978-1936790104 An insider’s perceptive look at how digital technology is consuming the consumer.

It’s striking when someone with more than two decades of experience promoting and launching tech products sets out to write a book that is essentially a warning to society about the nasty nature of technology. In fast-moving text replete with engaging ad-like chapter headings, Benlevi traces the rise of digital technology and the manner in which it has been sold to the consumer. The book’s premise can be summed up in the author’s stinging observation that “[t]he core properties of commonality and connectivity that make digital life seem so appealing are exactly the same ones that make it so destructive, invasive, and subject to abuse.” Indeed, Benlevi spends the majority of the book exploring this notion. He demonstrates how entertainment—primarily video, music and games—is the economic driver of the digital world. Benlevi suggests media labs, the “digerati,” venture capitalists, Internet service providers and “marketeers” comprise an insidious “Cult of Tech” that is first and foremost focused on profit. In case after case, the author depicts the potentially dangerous downside of a digital life. He discusses, for example, how video gamers become alienated from society, why cell phones can act like “digital cocoons,” how YouTube has turned everyone into a video producer and why social media is fast becoming just another channel to market brands. He adopts the contrarian view that the widely acclaimed iPad is effectively “a vending machine for digital media”—a device designed to feed more entertainment options to the consumer rather than promote creativity. He makes the intriguing claim that the 2008 economic meltdown “was entirely facilitated by digital technology and computerized models that were either wrong, fraudulent, or both.” This is not entirely new territory; other books have pointed to society’s over-reliance on technology. But Benlevi is especially passionate about the topic, which makes for a good read. In the end, Benlevi offers a compelling case for taking control of one’s digital life, rather than having it control you.

An entertaining, insightful book that a digitally dependent reader won’t soon forget.

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“A peek into a sepia-toned old world.” from a prayer for the departed

A PRAYER FOR THE DEPARTED Tales of a Family Through the Decades of the Last Century Broder, Bill CreateSpace (233 pp.) $12.99 paperback | Aug. 15, 2011 978-1461138938

Novelist and playwright Broder (Taking Care of Cleo, 2006, etc.) presents a series of vignettes about his family.

Broder begins by delving into his parents’ life stories, tracing the contours and examining particular moments (“All histories are selective,” Broder says in the foreword).

The book is organized by decades and shares meaningful moments, beginning in the early 20th century before Broder’s birth (which sets the stage) and carrying through to the ‘80s. While the book lacks a traditional narrative structure and arc, its straightforward, sweet retelling will remind readers of a grandfather sharing his delightfully quaint history, a peek into a sepia-toned old world.

Readers learn of Broder’s father’s self-discipline and ethics and his mother’s lack of confidence. Intriguingly, the author doesn’t simply superficially serve a scramble of stories. Instead, he utilizes these portraits to demonstrate the effects of his parents’ behavior on his personality and growth. For instance, upon Broder’s discovery of an old paper of his father’s that succinctly detailed his father’s goals and aspirations, the father comes to represent “moral standards.”

Broder’s careful, eloquent meditations upon family life transform this account from a mere history or memoir to a celebration of, and tribute to, family life. “What a curious idea,” Broder says when examining the idea that his family had “shared a life.” This curiosity propels the book and lends an authenticity and engaging quality to the author’s musings. Though his subject matter may seem extremely limited and personal, his elegiac, sincere storytelling keeps readers hooked and appreciative of a time that once was.

The book’s glance at history as a moving force and its examination of each decade allow readers to realize and experience history and the past. Broder not only shares his life and journey with readers, but allows them to touch and feel it.

A tender, inquisitive book that will appeal to those from old and new worlds.

ME AGAIN

Cronin, Keith Five Star (321 pp.) $25.95 | Aug. 17, 2011 978-1432825034 In Cronin’s novel, a man emerges from a coma six years after a massive stroke only to find he’s changed as much as the world has.

Jonathan Hooper’s doctors and family call his sudden recovery a miracle, but Jonathan himself isn’t so sure. After six years spent in a coma, he has a long road to actual recovery, and even then it’s unlikely that he’ll ever remember who he used to be.

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His sole source of comfort is the beautiful Rebecca Chase, a fellow stroke victim who has undergone a dramatic personality shift and, like Jonathan, is confronted with the fact that she may never be the person she once was. But the more Jonathan discovers about his past as an emotionally distant, dishonest businessman, the more he wonders if his amnesia may actually be a blessing.

Cronin’s debut is an engaging read, utilizing an affable tone and ample humor to temper subject matter that could easily fall into melodrama. The novel shines when navigating the complex interpersonal relationships Jonathan has been thrown back into, as he gets to know not just the family he’s unable to remember, but also the man he used to be. The conflict in gathering this information comes from one of the most relatable, frustrating aspects of human interaction—the inclination to avoid emotional harm and confrontation at all costs. Cronin displays an impressive understanding of conversational subtext, and, at its best, the novel’s dialogue works on many levels at once without coming across as obtuse. This isn’t always consistent, though, with a lot of repetition (particularly some of the oft-repeated jokes) and transparent exposition making some exchanges feel less refined. Everything ties up a little too neatly at the end, and Jonathan never really faces any repercussions for his pre-coma sins, but it’s the little triumphs along way—Jonathan’s rebirth and personal healing—that feel like the novel’s true resolution.

Despite its flaws, Cronin’s novel ultimately avoids the genre’s worst sin—heavy-handedness.

A PASSEL OF HATE

Epley, Joe CreateSpace (349 pp.) $17.00 paperback | Sep. 14, 2011 978-1461075936 In Epley’s novel of historical fiction set during the American Revolution, passions flare and families are divided during the lead up to the battle of Kings Mountain. 1780 was a tense year in the Carolinas; some families remained staunchly loyal to the king, while others believed just as fervently in the revolution.

Other families were divided within themselves between the revolutionary Whigs and the loyalist Tories. One such divided family was the Godleys, whose brothers were split between the two sides, except for Jacob Godley, who harbored no strong feelings either way until he stumbled upon a scene of devastation following a loyalist raid on the nearby Pearson farm; a militia led by the cruel Rance Miller had killed two Pearson men for their revolutionary sympathies, leaving behind a widow and a teenage daughter to fend for themselves. Jacob, an experienced tracker, joined the revolutionaries as a ranger and played a role in the escalating tension that culminated in the battle of Kings Mountain, which, although a major victory for the revolution and a turning point in the war, had deep personal consequences for Jacob.

Epley’s straightforward prose efficiently drives the plot. A barrage of characters introduced in rapid succession in the first few chapters bogs things down a bit, but once the major players are

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established, Epley falls into a nice rhythm. The level of historical detail here is stunning, but period touches are introduced naturally and never in such detail or quantity as to slow things down.

After the initial character introduction and scene setting, the action accelerates at a steady clip, leading to a satisfying climax.

The characters are so well-crafted that it’s difficult to tell the historical figures from those created by Epley, as they all seem fully believable. Most importantly, Epley provides evenhanded treatment of both sides of the conflict. He paints a war fought by real, predominantly decent people with heartfelt but irreconcilable ideas, rather than a black-and-white battle between good and evil.

A well-crafted, immersive historical novel, with just the right level of period detail.

THE CROOKED TILE

Harrison, Howard CreateSpace (433 pp.) $18.99 paperback | $3.00 e-book Sep. 5, 2011 978-1463750954 One-eyed murderers, international child sex slavery rings and people in power covering up crimes—it’s another go-round in the trenches for Chief Inspector Bill Harrigan of the London Metropolitan Police in this third and latest entry in Harrison’s (Destroy the Paper Tiger, 2011, etc.) series of police procedurals.

Harrigan’s latest adventure begins in late 1989, as he and his romantic partner, Margaret, are stopped at the Sydney airport as they prepare to return to London; his assistance has been requested in the investigation and apprehension of Reginald Baines, an unstable hit man Harrigan captured years before. According to the Australian Federal Police, Baines was transferred to the UK as part of a prisoner exchange, where he promptly escaped, killing several people in the process. As Harrigan and his expanding team of trusted associates investigates Baines’ escape and subsequent crimes, however, the plot thickens exponentially, growing to encompass the machinations of the ruthless Esposito crime family and an infant murder case that may not be as settled as those in power would like. Despite the increasing intricacy of the plot, the narrative unwinds with confidence, clearly stating the events and the characters involved. Many of the secondary characters are barely sketches, but the central actors—particularly Harrigan, Margaret and Inspector Throgmorton, Harrigan’s latest stalwart ally in the Met—are drawn with sufficient depth and color to come alive.

In the early chapters, the exposition of minor background details, such as car makes and models and furniture, slow the narrative, as does a saturation of commas and apostrophes. But the story finds its rhythm by the novel’s midpoint, and adept plotting keeps things moving to a well-earned denouement.

Despite a choppy first half, the narrative settles down into a clearly plotted adventure that maintains a swift pace through to the end.

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THE LONG ROAD TO PARIS

Howle, Ed Howle, Janet Xlibris (332 pp.) $26.99 | paper $15.99 | $9.99 e-book Feb. 6, 2011 978-1456818593 978-1456818586 paperback Driving a Volkswagen Beetle with an alternative engine-technology, an engineer races from New York to Paris and tries to outwit those bent on stealing the car.

Ed Talbot, engineer and owner of a fledgling alternative automotive testing company, has just been offered an intriguing opportunity. German scientist Dietrich Otto has developed a revolutionary engine-technology that could severely impact the world’s oil dependency. To gauge its effectiveness, Dietrich puts the invention into a 1967 VW Beetle and asks Ed to drive it in a car rally from New York to Paris. Ed agrees, though he’s uneasy about Dietrich’s almost pathological secrecy. Unease turns to full-fledged dread when Ed’s business partner is murdered and the FBI starts getting nosy. Someone has a huge interest in Dietrich’s invention, but who is it? Ed wants to back out, but breach of contract carries a heavy price, so he takes the wheel. He’s paired with expert navigator Marie-Claire Levieux, a gorgeous, mysterious Frenchwoman who carries a potentially devastating secret. Soon, Ed’s feelings for Marie-Claire aren’t in keeping with those of a married man, but once they’re traveling on the great Trans-Siberian highway in Russia, romance is the last thing on his mind. Another murder, a nearly fatal attack and sabotage make the rally a race to survive. More than one country wants Dietrich’s technology either to develop or destroy, and Ed is smack in the middle with only Marie-Claire to trust. The Howles, themselves experienced ralliers, have done a remarkable job recreating the day-to-day challenges of an around-theworld race, and their intriguing, behind-the-scenes details add a rich, delightful layer to the story. In a time of record-high gasoline prices, the plot raises intriguing questions about the world’s love affair with oil, but, thankfully, the message isn’t heavyhanded. It’s Ed and Marie-Claire’s witty banter, quick thinking and dedication to the race—and to each other—that makes the read so enjoyable. Though some plot resolutions are too convenient, it doesn’t detract from the fun-filled ride.

Fast cars, fast women and fast thinking comprise this solid, utterly entertaining thriller.

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“Essential reading for anyone heading off to do business in China.” from when we are the foreigners

WHEN WE ARE THE FOREIGNERS What Chinese Think About Working with Americans Kelm, Orlando R.Doggett, John N.Tang, Haiping CreateSpace (146 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Aug. 22, 2011 978-1463503680

A lively, informative primer on recognizing and avoiding the cultural pitfalls Americans may encounter while doing business in China.

A Chinese human resources director is embarrassed and troubled by the lavish public compliments a company manager offers her. At meetings, the Chinese employees say little to nothing, frustrating their American boss who wants and expects their input. Such cultural misunderstandings are common and avoidable, contend authors Kelm (Hispanic linguistics/University of Texas at Austin; Brazilians Working with Americans, 2007), Doggett, a senior lecturer at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, and Tang, a senior product planner for Dell, Inc. In a familiar business text format, they offer eight case studies, each of which focuses on a particular cultural impasse, such as those mentioned above, that may stall American-Chinese business dealings. Each case study is followed by commentary from three American executives with much experience doing business in China, and three Chinese executives. The authors then offer some final comments along with topics and questions for discussion. While a few of the case studies tend to repeat the same message and the executives don’t always agree in their commentary, overall the format works well, offering broad lessons from particular scenarios. Simply put, China is different, and American executives, if they are to succeed in China, should recognize this. Millennia of Confucian influence have produced in China a strong sensitivity to the needs and feelings of the group. A public compliment, which Americans hand out like candy, may cause the Chinese recipient to worry that other colleagues may lose face and experience public humiliation. China is also a hierarchical society; though this is changing, one does not publicly challenge the boss. If Chinese are quiet at a meeting, it doesn’t mean they’re disinterested, only cautious, and may express themselves quite clearly one-on-one or in e-mails. Dozens of such insights and lessons are offered throughout the book, all leading to the conclusion that, in China, how the deal gets done is as important as getting it done.

Essential reading for anyone heading off to do business in China.

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CODE OF DARKNESS

Lindberg, Chris Lulu (309 pp.) $16.99 paperback | $5.99 e-book Aug. 17, 2011 978-1257802630 A superhuman capable of extreme feats of speed and strength must escape the NSA and his demons.

Rage; the very word conjures a directed fury—animate, precise, irate.

To the low-level criminals and hoodlums of Chicago, Rage is a very real person, distributing justice on the nighttime streets with extreme vengeance. One of these acts captures the attention of widowed Chicago police officer Larry Parker, but Rage disappears before Parker can speak with him. Several weeks later, it’s Parker’s extreme misfortune to run into the seemingly bionic vigilante a second time, and Parker is drawn into a web of murders, cover-ups and national security secrets for which his police department training could never have prepared him. A secret even to most in the intelligence community, Rage is a product of a government experiment to reprogram the human genome and create a being who can do the impossible—leap buildings, throw vehicles, knock down walls with a single punch. Now, almost 30 years after this experiment began, the government wants their test subjects back, and an elite SWAT team has been deployed to capture Rage—but little does he know that there are two others like him. One is rogue, living as an assassin for hire, and the other is a loyal solider of the federal government; it’s this second soldier whom Rage, Parker and their cohorts must defeat to keep their freedom. The action traverses much of the Eastern United States, and, all too often, much of the storyline; the book features numerous taut combat and chase sequences, but ultimately lacks emotional depth. Several scenes of dreamlike intimacy are attempted between Rage and his beautiful female acquaintance, but the interactions and dialogue feel contrived and one-dimensional. Similarly, Rage often wrestles with his conscience, pondering whether his numerous killings are borne out of justice or bloodlust, but these moments never go beyond the surface and the philosophical issue is never satisfactorily resolved. Comparisons to Robert Ludlum’s Bourne trilogy (and many superheroes in American popular culture, for that matter) are certainly warranted. Readers will find that those books offer deeper looks into the world of an alienated, weaponized human being.

A sharp thriller in many aspects, but lacks the robustness and depth of many classics of the genre.

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“A lively, brash, illuminating insider’s look at the law, by a compelling expert witness.” from justice in america

JUSTICE IN AMERICA How it Works - How it Fails Moran, Russell F. Coddington Press (276 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Jul. 16, 2011 978-1-463632700 2.99 e-book

The goddess of justice is blind—and deaf and very often dumb—according to this savvy critique of the American legal system.

Moran, a lawyer, journalist and founding editor of The New York Jury Verdict Reporter, knows firsthand the problems that plague American jurisprudence, and isn’t afraid to point fingers. Topping his rogue’s gallery are “incompetent idiots” on the bench, including justices of the peace who don’t even need a high-school diploma to throw people in jail and trial judges who fall asleep during testimony. (And no, that won’t get your conviction overturned, Moran notes, unless you can prove the judge slept through something important.) Then there are the personal injury lawyers who cast about for deep pockets to sue no matter how dubious the liability, the attorneys who rake in millions from class-action suits that net their “clients” a few dollars each, the jurors—like Moran’s uncle—who base verdicts on off-the-wall theories instead of the evidence, the legislators who craft stupid laws and Supreme Court justices who uphold them based on tortured readings of the Interstate Commerce Clause.

(Not always in contempt of court, Moran does allow that, often enough, judges are underpaid and conscientious, lawyers careful and upright and malpractice suits well-founded.) The author sets his indictment against a lucid outline of basic legal concepts and court procedures and nuanced discussions of everything from the propriety of electing judges to the mortgage-foreclosure robosigning scandals. Moran writes in an entertaining, wised-up style, his punchy prose laced with black humor and an inexhaustible supply of anecdotes. His free-wheeling arguments shade from law into politics and beyond, as he enters a sweeping condemnation of a litigious society bound up in red tape because of liability fears, takes swipes at the New Deal regulatory state and even throws soup at snooty French waiters. It’s a bit over-stuffed, but Moran’s street-cred, irreverent wit and gift for translating legal arcana into laymen’s terms make for a persuasive brief.

A lively, brash, illuminating insider’s look at the law, by a compelling expert witness.

SUPERPOWERS

Neuman, Fredric CreateSpace (249 pp.) $13.95 paperbackAug. 31, 2011 978-1461170167 A quirky nocturnal visitor offers a confused 16-year-old the superpower of his choice.

Everything is suddenly different for Skipper, a New York City teenager; less |

than a week after his mother’s death from cancer, he wakes up in a hospital bed after suffering what his doctor calls a “life threatening” asthma attack and finds that someone is in the room with him—a strange man wearing a sombrero, a horizontally striped suit and mismatched socks. The odd stranger introduces himself as Hal and offers Skipper any superpower he would like, under the assumption that he will use it to make the world a better place. Unsure which power to choose, Skipper agrees to think about it and drifts off to sleep, bringing the surreal conversation to an end. The next day, Skipper isn’t sure whether the encounter had actually taken place, or whether it was brought on by the strong asthma medication his overprotective mother had always been wary of his using. But when Hal continues to visit Skipper at night, the teenager mulls over his superpower options in earnest.

Meanwhile, Skipper, along with his best friends Albert and John, must negotiate all the social and physical hazards that come with being the relatively uncool kids at their exclusive private school, while Skipper deals with a crabby, emotionally distant father, an eager love interest and, most importantly of all, the freedom and responsibility that comes with life without his overprotective mother. This book presents a humorous yet poignant account of a young man’s first brush with adulthood, featuring well-rendered, believable characters. The prickly relationship between Skipper and his father is especially well done, and the scenes between Skipper and Hal utilize peculiar dream logic to good effect. There are moments that are slightly out of place—an encounter with a bully at a dance, for instance—but overall the plot flows nicely.

The book’s simple prose and lighthearted tone make it a pleasure to read, and, combined with its universal themes, suitable for young readers and adults alike. The fact that the humor tends toward the goofy only adds to this book’s considerable charm.

A touching, funny novel perfectly suited for anyone who is or ever has been a teenager.

WHEN COMES WHAT DARKLY THIEVES

Rubin, Ben Button-down Bird (19 pp.) $19.95 | $6.95 e-book | Dec. 7, 2011 978-0983826705 A dark, dreamy tale illustrated with rich, textured collages.

Told in the second person, this fictional picture book uses surreal imagery and poetic language to weave an unusual story of subconscious desires and wishes.

“Imagine this, you have always been afraid of gypsies, and for good reasons too,” the story begins, explaining that gypsies carry children away in sacks and take them away from their homes and loved ones. As the story unfolds, Zinganas, the blind king of gypsies, shows up at your door and finds you despite your pitiful attempts to hide. The king tricks you with the false promise of “what you wanted most,” then disappears in the night with the moonbeams from your eyes, leaving you alone to find your way back to them. The book is illustrated with multicolored collages, assembled from pieces of photographs, colors and images

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h n e a l p o l l a c k JEWBALL

Pollack, Neal $4.99 e-book October 11, 2011

Neal Pollack’s body of work defies easy categorization. He broke through with a book of fictional first-person essays (The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, 2002) and has written about rock and roll (Never Mind the Pollacks, 2003), yoga (Stretch, 2010), current events (Beneath the Axis of Evil, 2003) and fatherhood (Alternadad, 2010). His latest book, Jewball, is his foray into genre fiction and is characteristically tough to categorize. It’s a noirish tale based on historical figures from preWorld War II Jewish semi-pro basketball in Philadelphia, the Nazi Bund and organized crime. It was the perfect book, Pollack says, to experiment with e-book publishing. It was released online October 11, with a print-on-demand version in the works.

For links to Jewball and Pollack’s other works, visit www.nealpollack.com.

Q: So you are releasing Jewball as an Internet-only release?

K i rk us M edi a L L C # President M A RC W I N K E L M A N SVP, Finance J ames H ull SVP, Marketing M ike H ejny

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Q: Have you been dissatisfied with traditional methods of publishing? Does electronic publishing offer you something traditional publishing doesn’t?

A: I wouldn’t say dissatisfaction is my main reason for doing this. My main reason for doing this is wanting to try something different and wanting to see how this new technology works. And I had this book that, if I’d gone the traditional publishing route, I wouldn’t be talking to anyone about it for the next 18 months. I started it in February, finished it in May, I finished my copy editing three weeks ago, and now we’re talking about publishing it. It sped up the process so much that it’s kind of hard to resist at least trying it.

The thing that publishers can do that I can’t is distribute the book in stores and to sort of make people aware of it through the traditional distribution channels. They could get me booked into book fairs and things, but, in my experience, that doesn’t necessarily move product. I don’t think corporate publishers were going to leap at the chance for this book. I think I probably would have sold it, but I wouldn’t have sold it for much money, so that being the case, I don’t think that whatever publisher I sold it to would put that much effort into it. It’s a good book on which to experiment.

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A: I would say “eclectic.” That’s not really the label you want as a writer, but it certainly applies to me.

I think a book like this lends itself well to e-books because the e-books that sell well on Kindle tend to be genre-ish and tend to be short. People who read e-books want books that are short that they can read on a plane flight. They buy in bulk, almost. They just read and read and read. You’re not going to read a 1200-page William Vollmann book on your Kindle.

Q: What makes you write any particular book? What draws you from project to project?

A: I’ve been an NBA fan most of my life, I’ve been Jewish all of my life, and I had never heard of this era of Jewish basketball that was so prominent. And it was—not a secret, but not as well-known as the relationship between Jews and baseball. I was just really taken by the descriptions of the culture I was hearing.

And the more I looked into it, the more I realized I could craft an interesting story set in this world. And I’d always wanted to write something that had a noir feel to it. And the subject matter and the time period just lend itself to that. I wanted to make it read like the kinds of books I liked. I wanted to write it like the kinds of books I like to read.

Q: Did you want to alert people to this history or was it just a good story?

A: I don’t know. To me, this is more just about story and characters and scene and mood. I have no real interest in being the guy who reclaims the lost legacy of Jewish basketball. There’s already been stuff written about this, there’s already been a documentary. So it’s not like I’m first through the gate. I just wanted to tell an entertaining crime fiction story that used this as a backdrop.

– By Nick A. Zaino III

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p hoto c ou rt e sy of L au ra Sa rtor is/A n t h o lo gy P hoto gr a p hy

SVP, Online Paul H o f f man

A: Initially I was going to do it as an e-book, and I’m still doing that for sure, but it’s kind of apparent that not everyone is ready to go with an e-book yet. Not everyone has a Kindle, not everyone knows about the free Kindle app on the smartphone, the iPad. Plus, not everyone wants to read books on their phone. I think the time will come when that’s the vast majority, but it’s not here yet, so we’re gonna do a print-on-demand edition as well and sell that through Amazon.

Q: Do you think this is a good method for you as someone who jumps between genres?

“Memorable characters, macabre scenes and a dazzling portrayal of reality...” from the dark before dawn

that often appear as though they were cut from tissue or textured paper. The illustrations, which vaguely resemble Cubist paintings in their blocklike forms, are easily the book’s most striking feature. An image of Zinganas depicts two crowned figures constructed from fragments of photographed faces, jagged edges and textured blocks of color. Above the scenario hovers a single, closed eye, referencing Zinganas’ blindness, or perhaps the subconscious fears he evokes. In contrast, images depicting the main character appear ambiguous, either showing a blank, simplistic face or avoiding showing it entirely, as such illustrations stand in for any reader who encounters the book.

The fragmented images work well with the strange narrative and add an eerie, nightmarish element to the story. The book closes with a gorgeously textured image of children swinging across a crimson background, ending on a mysterious note that will leave readers wondering what happens next.

An unusual, artfully rendered story that will appeal to children as well as adults.

FATHER TIERNEY STUMBLES Shekleton, John iUniverse (246 pp.) $26.00paper | $16.95 | $9.99 e-book Jun. 28, 2011 978-1462009268 978-1462009220 paperback

Shekleton (A Jesuit Tale, 2000) begins his second novel moments after the title character, a closeted gay Catholic priest, tests HIV-positive.

Father Joe Tierney’s decision to seek advice from a trusted friend leads him to a clandestine support group for HIV-positive clergy. Meanwhile, a freelance reporter investigating the issue of AIDS in the Catholic priesthood moves closer to discovering the support group. Angela Roth, director of public relations for the diocese, undertakes her own research as she tries to formulate a measured response to increasing media scrutiny. The conflicts between Angela’s professional obligations and personal beliefs represent one of the novel’s highlights. Likewise, the author evokes Joe’s Mexican-American heritage by incorporating Spanish words and phrases that are authentic, yet unobtrusive for readers not familiar with Spanish. This well-paced narrative maintains a consistent sense of urgency, where each critical decision has potentially disastrous consequences. Although the use of clunky similes and metaphors can weigh down the narrative voice at times, Shekleton is generally more successful when he allows the characters to speak for themselves: “I guess I see myself as bruised, kind of like a corpse, a badly beaten corpse—a corpse like you’d find in a crime lab. The bruises, they’re deep….But the problem is: no one else sees the bruises. No one else knows how deep they go.

I’m not even sure how deep they go.” This morbidly familiar image from television crime dramas goes a long way to illustrate the themes of identity—visible and invisible, embraced and stigmatized—at the heart of the novel. Those who wish to |

read of erotic adventures in the rectory will not find them here; sexual content is demure and understated. After all, the author seems to imply, sex is part of the story, but not the whole story.

An author’s note reveals Shekleton’s intention to continue with Father Tierney’s story, and a considerable number of readers may want to accompany him further in this exploration of faith, identity and community.

THE DARK BEFORE DAWN

Stevens, Laurie CreateSpace (372 pp.) $13.49 paperback | Jun. 24, 2011 978-1456450113 Detective Gabriel McCray, the prime suspect in the Malibu Canyon serial killings, grapples with the ghosts of his tormented past in Stevens’ (Follow Your Dreams, 2009, etc.) dark murder mystery.

Set in the Santa Monica Mountains, the novel begins with the termination of Det. Gabriel McCray, who is serving a suspension for police brutality. Meanwhile, the Malibu Canyon murderer lures unsuspecting victims into the mountains, carving them up with an old Army knife before engulfing them in flames. When the serial murderer leaves a peculiar message lodged in a gaping hole in a victim’s chest, three things become apparent—the perpetrator knows Gabriel, he or she is intent on revisiting his past and the Los Angeles Police Department cannot solve the case without reinstating him. With Gabriel back on the case, Stevens sets the stage for graphic sensory details and a fast-paced, tantalizing mystery that utilizes her passion and research in forensics and psychology. From fingers still displaying wedding bands to severed ears, the serial killer collects one gruesome souvenir after another in an attempt to achieve the seven chakras of power. As the plot unfolds, dialogue between Gabriel and his psychologist Dr. B produces revelations about “Gabe’s” childhood, and his suppressed memories are extracted through hypnosis. Stevens seamlessly integrates flashbacks of Gabriel’s life in San Francisco as a neglected child and his traumatic experiences with Andrew Pierce. Readers will relate to the San Francisco and Los Angeles settings, and Stevens’ allusions to “Cask of Amontillado” and Frankenstein craft a story immersed in theater, disguise and secrecy. In the midst of the upheaval caused by the unsolved murders, the author provides Gabriel with a fascinating love interest, Ming—the chief medical examiner assigned to examine the victims’ bodies. Gabriel’s bouts of violent behavior and incessant blackouts at inopportune times leave him as the prime suspect and thrust him into a world of self doubt, old wounds and suppressed memories in which key clues are concealed.

Memorable characters, macabre scenes and a dazzling portrayal of reality will leave readers anxious for book two in the Gabriel McCray series.

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rs e d a e R r u o Y e v a H ’ t a h t Y.A. Novels

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