January 1, 2013: Volume LXXXI, No. 1

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V O L . L X X X I , N O.

Also In This Issue Q&A with Patricia Dunn p. 108

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J A N UA RY

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CHILDREN’S & TEEN

Requiem

by Lauren Oliver Oliver brings the Delirium trilogy to a triumphant close. p. 89

NONFICTION

Richard Z. Santos Explores The School of Life (and Sex) p. 54

Toms River

by Dan Fagin Fagin exposes how corporate interests and corrupt politicians almost turned a quiet beach community into a toxic wasteland. p. 46

Julie Danielson on Laying the Foundation, Setting up House p. 84 Round-up: Easter Books p. 95

FICTION

Ordinary Grace

Sue Grafton

The best-selling author takes stock. p. 14

by William Kent Krueger A novel that transforms narrator and reader alike p. 20

Photo by Laurie Roberts

A New Start to a New Year’s Reading B Y G RE G O RY MC NA M EE

If you’re reading this, it means we survived the end of the world.

There’s no guarantee as to the survival of civilization, of course—about which more in a minute—but at least we got over that hump and are now at the new year of 2013, at which point countless bibliomaniacs in the making have resolved to drink less, to behave better and especially to read more.

Which brings me to a little treasure of a book, Jane Mount and Thessaly La Force’s My Ideal Bookshelf, published just in time to offer just the sort of vade mecum that those newly resolute readers need. The conceit is an old one, that being for writers—and, in this case, illustrators, designers, architects, dancers, chefs and a host of other allied pursuits—to throw together a list of the books they can’t do without. The twists are many. One is Mount’s accompanying illustrations, which have a kind of quavery folk-art-turned-urban quality to them, Howard Finster meets Union Square. Another, though, is not just the diverse content of the shelves of the book’s 100-plus contributors, but also the commonalities.

Commonality one: Everyone loves Lolita, that once-shamefully dirty book. Or, that is, a great many of the contributors, no matter what their profession, name Humbert Humbert’s prurient little tale, by way of Vladimir Nabokov, as essential. Another Russian, Anton Chekhov, figures nearly as heavily, but it’s Lolita for the win, with Moby-Dick coming in close behind. (Lolita and Moby-Dick. There’s something Freudian there, but Freud doesn’t show up.) Another surprise, perhaps, is how well regarded George Eliot’s Middlemarch turns out to be; if Lolita is all about sexual desire, Middlemarch is what happens when people are not, ahem, getting any, which makes for a nicely accidental balance.

There’s Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, which turns up, among other places, on singer Rosanne Cash’s list. What’s more interesting than that datum is her revelation that her dad, Johnny Cash, was a book lover and habitué of used bookstores around the world. Who knew? Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye turns up on bunches of lists. Near-namesake Raymond Carver does not, given how influential he was just a few years back, his place now taken by David Foster Wallace, mention of whom often seems less a matter of admiration than of obligation.

There are a couple of sightings of Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy’s historical nightmare, and the more pleasant Once and Future King, T. H. White’s anachronistic spin on King Arthur.

There’s García Márquez—but more often Roberto Bolaño. There’s Murakami and Saint-Exupéry and even dear Boris Pasternak, who appears in what might be my favorite list of all, John Jeremiah Sullivan’s, in which that fine essayist imagines “a decent shelf from which to regrow civilization” when bad things happen to us good people; a literal desert-island list.

Every reader, on seeing another reader’s shelves, goes snooping—and book sales ensue. Mount and La Force’s wonderful little volume ought to spur sales all on its own. Don’t be surprised if Lolita surges on the Amazon charts, but spare a kindly thought for Ray Carver as well.

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contents fiction

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

Index to Starred Reviews...................................................... p. 5 REVIEWS........................................................................................... p. 5 Sue grafton takes stock.......................................................p. 14 Mystery..........................................................................................p. 29 Science Fiction & Fantasy.......................................................p. 35

nonfiction Index to Starred Reviews...................................................... p. 39 REVIEWS........................................................................................... p. 39 Richard Z. Santos explores the school of life (and sex)........................................................................................p. 54

children’s & teen Index to Starred Reviews......................................................p. 67 REVIEWS...........................................................................................p. 67 julie danielson on laying the foundation, setting up house........................................................................p. 84 easter Roundup......................................................................... p. 95 interactive e-books.................................................................p. 97

indie Index to Starred Reviews....................................................p. 101 REVIEWS..........................................................................................p. 101 Q&A with patricia dunn.........................................................p. 108

William Kent Krueger thinks about God. See the starred review on p. 20. |

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on the web For the latest new releases every day, go online to Kirkus.com. It’s where our editors and contributing blog partners bring you the best in science fiction, mysteries and thrillers, literary fiction and nonfiction, teen books and children’s books, Indie publishing and more.

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For Nick Flynn, that game we all play—the who-would-play-you-in-the-movie-of-yourlife game—is already resolved. His new memoir, The Reenactments, chronicles the surreal experience of being on set during the making of the film Being Flynn, from his best-selling memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and watching the central events of his life reenacted: his father’s long run of homelessness and his mother’s suicide. Flynn tells the story of Robert De Niro’s first meeting with Flynn’s real father in Boston and of watching Julianne Moore attempt to throw herself into the sea.

The result is a mesmerizingly sharp-edged and kaleidoscopic literary tour de force as well as a compelling argument about consciousness, representation and grief. Kirkus has exclusive access to Flynn’s photos from the set of Being Flynn, which we will publish in January, along with Flynn’s account of the film.

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Ousep Chacko, the journalist and failed novelist at the heart of Manu Joseph’s new novel The Illicit Happiness of Other People, prides himself on being “the last of the real men.” This includes waking neighbors upon returning late from the pub. His wife Mariamma stretches their money, raises their two boys and, in her spare time, gleefully fantasizes about Ousep dying. One day, their seemingly happy 17-year-old son Unni—an obsessed comic-book artist—falls from the balcony, leaving them to wonder whether it was an accident. Three years later, Ousep receives a package that sends him searching for the answer, hounding his son’s former friends, attending a cartoonists’ meeting and even accosting a famous neurosurgeon.

Jaime Netzer interviews Manu Joseph to get at the heart of what makes The Illicit Happiness of Other People—a smart, wry, and poignant novel—so appealing.

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fiction THE GUILTY ONE

These titles earned the Kirkus Star:

Ballantyne, Lisa Morrow/HarperCollins (480 pp.) $14.99 paperback | $12.99 e-book Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-06-219551-7 978-0-06-219553-1 e-book

A THOUSAND PARDONS by Jonathan Dee.....................................p. 8 Z by Therese Anne Fowler...................................................................p. 9 ORDINARY GRACE by William Kent Krueger...............................p. 20 CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE by Owen Laukkanen.............................p. 20 THE DREAM MERCHANT by Fred Waitzkin..................................p. 29

A THOUSAND PARDONS

Dee, Jonathan Random House (224 pp.) $26.00 Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-8129-9321-9

The tales of two troubled boys at individual crossroads are interwoven in Ballantyne’s first novel.

Daniel Hunter grew up on the mean streets, with a drugged-out mother and an attitude that landed him in constant trouble. Removed from the mother’s home, the English boy bounced from foster home to foster home until he finally ended up at Minnie’s. The Irish Minnie, a widow whose only child has died, gave up nursing and moved to the country with her family, but she suffered twin tragedies that have left her alone with her animals and small farm, eking out a living selling eggs and produce and taking in foster kids. When Daniel arrives, Minnie tries to mold the disturbed and violent young boy into a man and eventually earns his respect, but years later, as a grown attorney, he and Minnie have parted ways and he no longer speaks to the woman who saved him. When he receives news that causes him to reflect on the years he put between himself and the affable, loving Minnie, he plunges into a case involving another vulnerable but possibly murderous boy named Sebastian. When Sebastian, whose wealthy parents hide a multitude of sins from the world, is charged with killing an 8-year-old playmate, Daniel must reach back into his own past to defend the child and prevent him from spending his formative years in prison, locked up like a monster. Ballantyne, who is Scottish, exhibits comfortable familiarity with the British legal and social systems, and the story she tells is both absorbing and compelling. This very lengthy novel takes the reader through Daniel’s childhood and both the trial preparation and the trial itself. The prose is strong, but Daniel and Sebastian are so damaged that it can be difficult to feel empathy for them.

A captivating debut, but Daniel and Sebastian prove difficult to like, and readers may find themselves unsatisfied when turning the last page.

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“Bill is one hell of a storyteller.” from donnybrook

DONNYBROOK

Bill, Frank Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-374-53289-5 This is a novel that guts the underbelly of southern Indiana and leaves the reader with either a rush of adrenaline or a wave of loathing.

Jarhead can’t find a job to feed his hungry babies, so he robs a gun store for $1,000—not a dollar more or a dollar less. His only skill is bareknuckle fighting, and he needs the money for the entry fee to the Donnybrook, a tournament where 20 men fight each other in a 30-by-30 enclosure until only one is left standing. Winners advance through several rounds, producing an ultimate winner who takes home a hundred grand in cash. It’s the only path Jarhead can see for a better life for his family. Unfortunately, it’s a path soaked in blood. Nearly everyone else of importance in this grim tale is a murderer, a meth dealer or user, a whore or an abuser of whores. Chainsaw Angus is Jarhead’s biggest obstacle in the Donnybrook, as he has never lost a fight in his life. Chainsaw’s sister Liz is a prostitute who puts a bullet in a man’s head while they are having sex. Bill portrays depravity and violence as few others can—or perhaps as few others dare to do. The problem is that most of the characters are one-dimensional, irredeemable, sorry wastes of protoplasm. It’s hard to imagine so many people showing so little decency in the same story. Yet the plot builds relentlessly to the final round of the Donnybrook and gives the reader unexpected jolts all the way through to an ending that strongly suggests a sequel.

Bill is one hell of a storyteller. If he makes his characters a little more complex, he could become one of the best, but this book doesn’t quite get him there.

THE CHALICE

Bilyeau, Nancy Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (512 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-1-4767-0865-2 A historical novel set during the time of Henry VIII. It opens in Canterbury in 1528, when the heroine, Joanna Stafford, is only 17 and her mother, worried about her daughter’s health, pretends to take her to benefit from healing waters there. In fact, it is her mother’s desire to have her daughter meet a woman with the gift of prophecy, a woman who is the first to see the role Joanna is destined to play in the future of the ongoing conflict between the crown and the cross. Her mother had come from Spain with Katherine of Aragon and married into an English family related to the Tudors. Because an uncle, the Duke of Buckingham, had been executed for treason after soliciting prophetic 6

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information about the death and heirs of King Henry, Joanna prefers to obey the command of her cousin to never solicit the knowledge or advice of seers. Her mother’s distress, however, moves her, and she pays attention to the first of what will be three seers who reveal, in progressive parts, her ultimate destiny.

The next chapter moves us to Dartford in 1538, at which time we see Joanna as a nun whose beauty inspires an uncomfortable lust in the men who meet her. Thereafter, Joanna, who would like to start a tapestry weaving business, continues to deny and resist her ultimate destiny but eventually, after an agonizing period of indecision, gives in and agrees to travel to Ghent (the birthplace of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) to meet with the third seer.

Joanna’s interest in weaving tapestries is an appropriate analogy for this layered book of historical suspense.

THREAT VECTOR

Clancy, Tom with Greaney, Mark Putnam (835 pp.) $28.95 | Dec. 4, 2012 978-0-399-16045-5 In which Jack Ryan, Junior and Senior, take on most of the bad guys in the world. Guess who wins.

Writing with international relations maven turned novelist Greaney, techno geek and political mayhem lover Clancy (The Hunt for Red October, 1984, etc.) drafts a legion of villains— al-Qaida operatives, rogue spooks, former Gadhafi agents and high-ups in the Chinese Communist Party—who are separately and together up to decidedly no good when it comes to the sovereign interests of the U.S., now led by former CIA agent Jack Ryan. His namesake son is a field agent, as adept as dad at identifying and eliminating threats, and the threats are ever so many. Junior and company have a clinically efficient way about them: “Target Four died, slumped on the floor by the toilet in the bathroom of the sports stadium, certain that this all must have been some terrible mistake.” Even so, getting to the heaviest of the heavies, among them brilliant hackers who, from the safety of China, are working 24/7 to break into America’s computers, takes them a little more effort and planning. Most of those heavies are believable, though one of them, a certain Tong, has a sort of Odd Job quality to him: “Not much gave him pleasure, his brain had been virtually programmed by the state so that it did not respond to such banal stimuli as pleasure.” It’s a pleasure, banal or no, to watch the Ryans at work against such fierce competition, and Clancy and Greaney are at the top of their game. Interestingly, too, Clancy’s writing has shed some of its erstwhile woodenness, and though he still loves gadgetry and military hardware, his latest doesn’t read like a tech manual, which is all to the good.

A satisfying thriller, with enough evildoers left over to ensure the possibility of another Ryan-Ryan adventure.

THE DARK LADY

Claremont, Máire Signet Eclipse/NAL (336 pp.) $7.99 paperback | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-451-41799-2 Despite his best intentions, Lord Ian Blake has failed to keep either of his childhood best friends safe; now Hamilton is dead and beyond salvation, but Ian will do everything in his power to save Eva—Hamilton’s widow and Ian’s first love—from the asylum she’s locked up in and from the dangerous people determined to keep her there.

All his life, Ian has felt duty-bound to the man who raised him when his parents died; Lord Carin. In light of these perceived obligations, he has forsaken the woman he loves, stepping aside to let Eva marry her intended groom, Hamilton, Lord Carin’s heir; he has traveled with Hamilton to India as a fellow army officer at Lord Carin’s request; and now that both men are dead, he has sworn to

protect Eva and her son, Adam. Returning to England, Ian finds that Eva is locked in an asylum and that Adam is dead. Extricating Eva from the brutal institution under false pretenses, Ian must find a way to keep her safe for good, while fighting his own feelings toward her. He failed to protect Hamilton from meeting a horrific end in India, and his guilt for that failure kept him from coming home sooner to help Eva, thus adding another layer of reproach to his conscience. He will save her from the clutches of the villains set on keeping her captive, but he can’t allow himself to reach for what he really wants—Eva as his own. This is the debut novel from author Claremont, who weaves an absorbing, complex story through Victorian society, touching on some of the more disturbing aspects of the time. Overall, the character arcs and storytelling are compelling and well-executed, though there are some elements that don’t hang quite true on the frame and undercut the complete success of the book. However, Claremont chooses to tackle a complicated plot and explore some dark facets of history with her debut—the first of a planned trilogy—and does so fairly well.

Not perfect, but in general, an intense, compelling read with a rewarding “good conquers evil” ending.

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SOLO PASS

De Feo, Ronald Other Press (192 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Mar. 5, 2013 978-1-59051-586-0 The drama inside a mental patient’s mind fails to sustain the reader’s interest.

This short, sketchy novel is slightly longer than a novella, but not deeper.

With more concision, it could have been a short story, encompassing one day in the life of a middle-aged man whose good behavior (or at least simulation of sanity) has rewarded him with an afternoon free in Manhattan from his confinement (the “solo pass” of the title).

The second novel by De Feo (Calling Mr. King, 2011) finds the protagonist sharing his anticipation of and preparation for this excursion, his anxiety-inducing (though ultimately uneventful) visit to the world of the supposedly better adjusted and his return to a place where he now feels he fits. He also shares his back story in bits and pieces, letting the reader fill in the gaps and decide what to believe (since a mental patient could be the definitive embodiment of the unreliable narrator). He describes a turning point that he says “possibly marked the beginning of the end of my sanity,” yet elsewhere indicates that he felt there was something that set him apart for as long as he could remember, that his “problem went quite a bit beyond shyness,” and that his mother made much of his boyhood “inability to mingle.”

His problems connecting with others cost him his job in publishing as an editor and his marriage to a woman from whom he withdrew. It also led him to an initial experience with therapy that crossed the line from unfortunate to unethical, precipitating the breakdown that resulted in his being institutionalized and providing the main thread of narrative momentum here.

(Will he seek revenge on his former therapist during his afternoon off?) The brief return to the outside world lets him know where he feels most at home.

Not much in the way of revelation or climactic arc.

A THOUSAND PARDONS

Dee, Jonathan Random House (224 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-8129-9321-9

A marriage flames out. Gleefully, thrillingly, Dee (The Privileges, 2010, etc.) tracks its aftermath, focusing primarily on the evolution of the ex-wife.

That’s Helen Armstead, struggling to save a dying marriage. Husband Ben, partner in a New York City law firm, has been so deeply depressed he’s ignored not just her and their upstate home, but their 12-year-old daughter, Sara (Chinese, adopted). The end comes fast. Ben, discovered in a hotel room with his intern, is beaten bloody by her boyfriend, then discovered again in his 8

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car, drunk and unconscious. Fired, and facing rape and DWI charges, he goes into rehab. Divorce filed but their assets frozen, Helen, a stay-at-home mom, must hustle to find work. She lucks out when she’s hired by a down-at-the-heels PR company in the city. Her first assignment, persuading the owner of a Chinese restaurant chain to publish an apology to his striking workers, is a huge success. Even the boss’ sudden death doesn’t slow Helen down. She persuades two more male clients, drowning in bad publicity, to go the apology route. Her crisis management skills attract the attention of a huge PR company, which recruits her. This is not some empowerment fairy tale; Dee keeps the action grounded and credible. In an already dramatic story, the most sizzling drama comes after Helen accidentally meets an old childhood classmate at a movie premiere. Hamilton Barth is a Hollywood superstar, a deeply troubled man with a history of benders and blackouts; a greatly magnified version of Ben. When Helen subsequently gets a rescue-me call from Hamilton in a Vermont motel, the already brisk pace becomes breakneck.

There’s a young woman missing, bloody sheets and an amnesiac Hamilton willing to believe the worst of himself. It will take all Helen’s crisis management skills to resolve this one.

With his sixth novel, Pulitzer finalist Dee has written a page turner without sacrificing a smidgen of psychological insight. What a triumph. (Author events in New York)

THE GODS OF HEAVENLY PUNISHMENT

Epstein, Jennifer Cody Norton (384 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 11, 2013 978-0-393-07157-3

An epic novel about a young Japanese girl during World War II underscores the far-reaching impact that the decisions of others can have.

Epstein (The Painter from Shanghai, 2008), who once lived and worked in Japan, presents a gripping story that centers around Yoshi Kobayashi, the product of an arranged marriage. Her father is a builder of common ancestry, and Hana, her mother, is a British-educated descendant of samurais. Hana doesn’t fit into either world, and her feelings of abandonment are reflected in the way she raises her daughter, who learns three languages and piano at a very early age. Cam, a stutterer who’s worked hard to overcome his disability, is married to his college sweetheart. His dreams of flying come true when he joins the Army Air Force and is assigned to James Doolittle’s squadron. Billy Reynolds has spent his youth in Japan and is keenly aware that he’s different. Fodder for the bullies at school, Billy loves photography, and when he receives a camera for his 12th birthday, he begins to document what he sees. His architect father, Anton, has designed many of the cutting-edge buildings cropping up in prewar Tokyo. But with the advent of war, many things change. The family leaves Japan, and Anton becomes involved in a military project that ultimately destroys what he’s helped create. The author thoughtfully describes the

hellish realities of war: the lack of tolerance for, and unwillingness to understand, other cultures; the universal pain of loss and human suffering; the brutality of mankind as lives are torn asunder. She infuses her narrative with many decent, strong characters who, in the end, manage to survive the tragedies of war and build new lives.

Readers, particularly those who enjoy WWII fiction, will appreciate this story.

Z A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Fowler, Therese Anne St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Mar. 26, 2013 978-1-250-02865-5 978-1-250-02864-8 e-book

The Jazz Age revisited through the tumultuous and harrowing life of Zelda.

Fowler’s Zelda is all we would expect and more, for she’s daring and unconventional yet profoundly and paradoxically rooted in Southern gentility. (Her father, after all, was a judge in Montgomery, Ala.) Once she meets the handsome Scott, however, her life takes off on an arc of indulgence and decadence that still causes us to shake our heads in wonder. The early years are sublime, for both Scott and Zelda are highspirited, passionate and deeply committed to each other.

There’s even a touching naïveté in the immoderation of their lives, a childlike awe in their encountering the confection of Paris for the first time. With the success of This Side of Paradise, Scott quickly becomes lionized, and life becomes an endless series of parties. Fowler reminds us of the astonishing social circle within which the Fitzgeralds lived and moved and had their being—soirées with Picasso and his mistress, with Cole Porter and his wife, with Gerald and Sara Murphy, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Ezra Pound and Jean Cocteau. Scott’s friendship with Hemingway verges on a love affair—at least it’s close enough to one to make Zelda jealous.

We witness Zelda’s increasing desperation to establish her own identity—rather difficult when Scott “claims” some of her stories as his own. She also studies ballet and gets an invitation to join a dance company in Italy, but Scott won’t allow her to leave. He bullies her, and she fights back. Ultimately, both of these tragic, pathetic and grand characters are torn apart by their inability to love or leave each other.

Fowler has given us a lovely, sad and compulsively readable book.

MIDDLE C

Gass, William H. Knopf (416 pp.) $28.95 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-307-70163-3 Misanthropy, atrocity, the Midwest— Gass revisits some familiar themes in this novel, though this ride is smoother than its epic predecessor, The Tunnel (1995).

The hero of this engaging, melancholy novel is Joseph Skizzen, an Ohio music professor who consistently dissembles to get ahead in life, from the driver’s license he faked to get his first job to the CV he invented to enter academia. But, Gass wants us to ask, aren’t we all born into lives of fraudulence? Joseph’s father, we learn early on, repeatedly changed identities to smuggle himself and his family out of Austria in advance of the Nazi horrors.

In a struggle to reckon with that past, Joseph privately maintains an Inhumanity Museum, filled with newspaper clippings

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“A complex, charming heartwarmer.” from the autumn bride

and photos of war, genocide and further proofs of mankind at its worst. Joseph’s deep-seated frustration with man’s inherent insincerity is exemplified by a sentence he obsessively revises: “The fear that the human race might not survive has been replaced by the fear that it will endure.” Gass positions Joseph as symbolic of civilization’s pervasive mediocrity: The title refers to a piano note but also suggests middle-class anxieties, mid-20th-century social catastrophes, Midwestern simplicity and middle-of-the-pack intelligence. (Joseph was a C student.)

In comparison to the black-heartedness of The Tunnel, this is practically a comedy, and its pleasures shouldn’t be discounted.

Gass remains a master of apt metaphors, graceful sentences and a flinty, unforgiving brand of humor; it may be the most entertaining novel you’ll read that half wishes humanity was wiped off the map. And though Joseph feels more like a symbol than a character, his neuroses over God, power and survival make him a rare creature in contemporary American fiction: a man as concerned with the big picture as with himself.

Gass, now 88, clearly has endings on his mind, which he addresses with fearsome brio and wit.

he’s waited for all of his life. Unfortunately, he’s betrothed to another, and danger lurks from the girls’ past, so Max and Abby must fight for their chance at happiness. Historical romance author Gracie is known for her nuanced, unconventional characters and rich, original plot lines. This book, first of a planned quartet, doesn’t disappoint.

A complex, charming heartwarmer that celebrates love, brave heroines and the miracle of second chances.

FAMILY PICTURES

Green, Jane St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-312-59183-0 978-1-250-02595-1 e-book Sylvie thought she had already experienced the worst that life could deal her: After her husband died, leaving her to raise Eve alone, what more could happen?

Years later, Sylvie has a good life. Her daughter Eve will head off to college soon, and her second husband, Mark, may be ready to settle down into a sales manager position. While life with Jonathan brimmed with the glow of young love, life with Mark rings with a secure love. Maybe it’s Mark’s traveling that has kept their love life sparking after 11 years—years that have seen other marriages fail. Yet all is not well, not well at all, in Eve’s life. Struggling to hide her worsening eating disorder, not to mention her secret second Facebook account, Eve’s once-close relationship with Sylvie is deteriorating.

One fateful weekend, Eve goes to an all-girls party in New York City, where she meets a kindred spirit, Grace, and the two girls swiftly abandon the others to their partying. Grace takes Eve home, where she meets Chris, Grace’s older brother, who is instantly attracted to her. Grace’s mother, Maggie, is a perfectionist (even her husband calls her the General), who has adopted a posh accent and posted rules throughout the opulent house. And it is there, in Maggie’s lovely Connecticut home, that Eve sees a photograph that will ruin two families. Riddled with coincidences and unlikely secrets, Green’s (Another Piece of My Heart, 2012, etc.) latest still manages to explore complex family dynamics with warmth.

An inverted fairy tale in which the happily-ever-after occurs without the prince.

THE AUTUMN BRIDE

Gracie, Anne Berkley Sensation (320 pp.) $7.99 paperback | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-425-25925-2 After governess Abigail Chantry saves her sister and two friends from abduction and ruin, the four women determine to survive together, finding a surprising champion in an elderly baroness—much to the chagrin of her handsome nephew.

When Abigail Chantry receives a mysterious message that her beautiful sister has been abducted and taken to a brothel, she races to save her and ends up with three young women to look out for. Bringing them to her home gets her sacked, so they rent a tiny room and look for work, hoping for some miracle that will keep them off the streets. Instead, they meet Lady Beatrice, an ill, elderly baroness who is practically imprisoned by the criminally neglectful servants living off her. Abby takes charge of Lady Bea’s household, running off the servants and hiring a small crew of new ones, and the four young women— who call themselves the Chance sisters—begin to nurse the invalid back to health. At the same time, Lady Bea’s nephew, Max, who has been out of the country rebuilding his fortune, comes home to find his aunt thin and sick and blames the mysterious Abby Chance, who seems to have an alarming sway over his aunt. Confronting her with his suspicions, he is astonished when the woman counterattacks, admonishing him for abandoning his aunt and placing the blame for Lady Bea’s condition squarely at his feet. Max investigates and learns the truth of his aunt’s troubles and how the young women—whom Lady Bea has taken to calling her nieces—saved her. It doesn’t answer the question of where they came from or what their motives are, but soon Max is convinced Abby Chance is the woman 10

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WHEN SHE WAS GONE

mature 17-year-old Linsey. Along the way, other mysteries and conflicts are raised and resolved, all with an eye toward offering insights into relationships: relationships with loved ones, relationships with neighbors, relationships with those we might not ordinarily notice or care about.

Death, life, redemption and music combine in a rewarding novel.

Gross, Gwendolen Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Mar. 19, 2013 978-1-4516-8474-2 A teenage girl goes missing, and the reader learns the intertwining stories of her family and neighbors.

The author’s knowledge of and love for music are evident in the chapters told from the perspective of the missing girl’s next-door neighbor, Mr. Leonard, a retired music teacher and pianist. Readers who love Liszt, Chopin, Brahms and other classical composers will find their reading experience enhanced. The stories revolve around childhood difficulties, parenting difficulties and the companionship (or lack thereof) in marriages, as well as the various kinds of secrets that people keep. The author creates a mystery surrounding the whereabouts and fate of the unusually

THE CARRIAGE HOUSE

Hall, Louisa Scribner (288 pp.) $25.00 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-1-4516-8863-4

The first novel from Philadephiaborn author Hall.

William Adair is the central hub around which a cast of insightfully depicted female characters revolve:

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Margaux, his wife, waltzing into a world of forgetfulness with early onset dementia; Louise, an aspiring writer from Australia hired on as Margaux’s caretaker; Adelia, William’s childhood friend and woulda-shoulda-coulda-been sweetheart, who comes to live with the family to help care for William after he suffers a stroke; and William’s three daughters. Trying to rescue the historic carriage house built by William’s grandfather, but now owned by a neighbor due to a zoning error and scheduled for demolition, is the cause that unites the women of William’s life. Elizabeth, the oldest daughter, once an actress on the way to success in Los Angeles, is back home with her two daughters after a heartbreaking divorce. Diana, once a tennis champion and president of her school, has returned home instead of defending her architecture thesis at university. Isabelle, the youngest and still a teenager, rebels against everything and everyone. The carriage house is not only the common cause that brings the women together, it is also the symbol of lost and rediscovered loves, dreams and aspirations as it first burns to the ground and then is rebuilt according to Diana’s design and under her supervision.

An emotional journey that’s ultimately filled with joy.

of life in the community. Or perhaps life in general. The death of Dad has dignity and gravitas, but too much leading up to it seems like contrived plotline filler. Between one character’s insistence that “[e]verything gets better” and another’s belief that “[a]ll life is moving through some kind of unhappiness,” the novel runs the gamut of homespun philosophizing.

Even the epiphanies seem like reheated leftovers.

HEART LIKE MINE

Hatvany, Amy Washington Square/Pocket (368 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Mar. 19, 2013 978-1-4516-4056-4 A work of fiction that reads like a collection of memoir pieces.

The voices are so down-to-earth and familiar and the events so much like real life that readers will feel like they know the characters. Grace is a wonderful, witty woman who works her way up to a well-paid and prestigious position and then gives it up to work for an organization devoted to helping victims of domestic violence. You learn to love her right away and are glad when she meets Victor, a smart and gentle man. You feel the pain of Victor’s two children through his ex-wife, Kelli: Ava, a precocious teenager, helps her emotionally fragile mother and cares for her younger brother, Max. Max and Ava live with Kelli and spend alternate weekends with Victor until Kelli dies shortly after learning that the husband she herself had asked to leave is engaged to be married to Grace. From the chapters about Kelli, one can sense a painful past, ultimately revealed. What keeps the reader turning pages is not suspense (there are no real surprises here) but rather the desire to keep company with the likable cast.

An uplifting and heartwarming experience. (Author appearances in Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle)

BENEDICTION

Haruf, Kent Knopf (272 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-307-95988-1 A meditation on morality returns the author to the High Plains of Colorado, with diminishing returns for the reader.

As the cliché has it, Haruf caught lightning in a bottle with his breakthrough novel, Plainsong (2000), an exploration of moral ambiguity in the small community of Holt.

With his third novel with a one-word title set in Holt, the narrative succumbs to melodrama and folksy wisdom as it details the death of the owner of the local hardware store, a crusty feller who has seen his own moral rigidity soften over the years, though not enough to accomplish a reconciliation with his estranged son, a boy who was “different” and needed to escape “from this little limited postage stamp view of things. You and this place both.” Or so the dying man, known to all as “Dad” Lewis, imagines his son saying, as the possibility of the son’s impending return before the father’s inevitable death provides a pulse of narrative momentum. Other plotlines intertwine: A minister reassigned from Denver for mysterious reasons has trouble adjusting with his family to small-town Holt; an 8-yearold girl next door, who lost her mother to breast cancer, receives support from a neighboring mother and her adult daughter (single after a scandalous affair); Dad’s own daughter has a boyfriend who isn’t worthy of her. It’s a novel that seems to suggest that it takes a village to raise a dysfunctional family, yet things somehow work themselves out. In a small town, “[n]othing goes on without people noticing,” yet they often miss what the outsider minister poetically observes is “[t]he precious ordinary” 12

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DARK TIDE

Haynes, Elizabeth Harper/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-06219733-7 In this follow-up novel to her 2012 debut, Into the Darkest Corner, British writer Haynes once again follows a woman navigating dangerous waters.

Genevieve hated every minute of her high-pressure corporate job. Then she stumbled upon pole dancing as a way to exercise and let off steam. The more she dances, the better she becomes, and soon she’s working at a private and very exclusive men’s club on weekends, making big money. But, as with all things that seem too good to be true, there is a catch: The club’s owner, Fitz, is shady, and many of his dealings are not legal. Soon, Genevieve |

“An intermittently arcane but undeniably original debut.” from telling the bees

also must deal with her heinous boss showing up at the club and making her life miserable at her day job. Finally fulfilling her lifelong dream to buy and live on a houseboat, she manages to get hold of enough money to buy an old barge and fix it up, but that leads to even more intrigue, with a mysterious package, the death of a friend whose body is dumped in the water near Genevieve’s boat, new neighbors at the marina and a man who may or may not be using her. The story is told by flashing back and forth between the present, when Genevieve works contentedly on her boat as her past races to catch up with her, and the past, when, as Viva, she swung half-naked on a pole and pandered to men for money. Although the story is engaging and keeps the reader wondering, Genevieve’s behavior, while good for moving the plot along, makes no sense from the perspective of a single woman alone and in danger. And, in the end, most readers will experience a profound sense of much ado about nothing when the mystery comes to light.

The story of a not very virtuous young woman whose secrets threaten to destroy others is well-told but ultimately a letdown.

same incident which severed Albert’s connection with them.

Someone is eventually convicted of the murders, but a question remains: Was this truly a random tragedy or one as inevitable as a bee colony’s collapse? The sheer oddness of Albert’s world contributes to a sense of creeping dread, and his ornate diction successfully conveys his archaic sensibility, with occasional lapses in clarity.

An intermittently arcane but undeniably original debut.

TELLING THE BEES

Hesketh, Peggy Putnam (320 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 7, 2013 978-0-399-15905-3

Friendship between two beekeepers leads to tragedy.

Elderly bachelor Albert Honig has lived in a California orange grove all his life, tending to several beehives. The neighborhood around him is gradually changing as farmland gives way to freeways and strip malls.

The routine he has cultivated, imparted long ago by his own father, is comforting, until one day in 1992, it is disrupted when he discovers the bodies of his next-door neighbors, murdered, it appears, during a botched robbery. The victims, Hilda and Claire Straussman, sisters known as the Bee Ladies, are also lifelong residents of the area, and perhaps their bodies would have been discovered earlier had Albert not been estranged from them for the past 11 years. The estrangement becomes the central quandary of the novel, which weaves back and forth in time, exploring the longstanding but forever unacknowledged attachment between contemplative Albert and sylphlike, mercurial Claire. Bee lore, grounded equally in modern science and ancient tradition, is interspersed throughout, positing the life of the hive as a template for a human family. As Albert is interrogated by a suitably sardonic police detective, his circumspect narration raises other mysteries besides the identity of the culprits: What happened to turn Hilda into a taciturn hulk? Who inflicted the bruises on teenage Claire’s neck? What accounts for 20-something Claire’s long stay in Alabama, after which she returned with an infant? That infant, David Gilbert, supposedly abandoned by a relative to be raised by the Straussmans, will, in turn, become estranged from the Bee Ladies—based on the |

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Taking Stock b y

Kinsey and Me

Grafton, Sue Marian Wood/ Putnam (304 pp.) $27.95 Jan. 8th, 2013 978-0-399-16383-8

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g r a f ton

Ah, January: that time of year for taking stock, separating the wins from the losses and totaling up the differences between the two. I can analyze my own progress by the simple expedient of the alphabet.

In 1982, I launched A ‘ ’ Is for Alibi, introducing female, hard-boiled private eye, Kinsey Millhone, who was then 32 years old. At the time, I was ten years her senior, and while I’d never written a mystery novel in my life, I’d long been a fan of the form.

My parents were avid readers and leaned heavily on the secondhand paperback mysteries, which could be purchased for 25 cents apiece from the corner drugstore. My father was a municipal bond attorney, but his true passion was the detective novel. While he supported the family practicing law full-time, he also managed to write and publish two novels of a projected eight-book series. The first, The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope, won the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award of 1943. The $2,000 prize may have been the high-water mark of his earnings career. Eventually, he was forced to set aside his writing because he couldn’t afford the time.

By the time I reached college, I was writing bad poetry and mediocre short stories. Despite a lackluster academic showing, I acquired a B.A. in English, with minors in fine arts and the humanities. In order to find gainful employment, I had to teach myself to type. Later, by pretending I knew medical terminology, I picked up jobs in the medical field, as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, a hospital admissions clerk, cashier and medical education secretary. Like my father, I indulged my passion for writing after paid work was ended for the day. By my late 20s, I’d published two quirky “literary” novels, and it looked like I was destined to make about as much money as he had, only without a respectable fallback position.

As luck would have it, the film rights to my second published novel sold. I learned screenplay form in 10 days flat, co-authored the adaptation, and picked up enough change to support myself and my children for a limited period. What followed was what I now refer to as “doing one to fifteen” in Hollywood; unjust punishment for someone whose only crimes were loving the English language and admiring the storytelling skills of writers who’d gone before. The pay seemed generous, and who could resist?

During my time in “the industry,” I learned how to write dialogue, how to get in and out of a scene, and how to write an action sequence. I also learned that I’m not a team player and I’m not a good sport. Writing by committee didn’t suit my personality, which can best be described as churlish and uncooperative. I became so snotty and unpleasant that producers and studio executives didn’t like me anymore, and I didn’t much like |

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myself. I decided I better get back into solo writing while I still had a shred of integrity and a few bucks left in the bank.

In Hollywood, according to an agent now deceased, I was known as a writer who could create character, but who could not “do” plot, a criticism that pissed me off. I decided I’d teach myself how to plot, and what better training, thought I, than the venerable “whodunit” of my early years. To this end, I studied police procedure, private eye procedure, California criminal law, texts on burglary and theft, ballistics and crime scene investigation. I also devoured numerous how-to manuals detailing the intricacies of the mystery novel.

A chance exposure to Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies sparked the notion of a mystery series based on the alphabet. As I was then embroiled in a nasty divorce, I had a victim in my sights, and I was able to dispose of him handily without risking arrest and sentencing. To distance myself from what might look like an unladylike enthusiasm for this fellow’s fictional demise, I invented a law-and-order type to represent my higher self, assuming I had one. Thus was born my heroine.

It was my intention (oh, let’s call it what it was...hubris) to write 26 detective novels, starting with the aforementioned A Is for Alibi and continuing through the as-yet-unwritten X, Y, and Z. The aspiration strikes me as cheeky from the vantage point of my advanced age (72, in case you haven’t heard.) With no guarantee of success, I sailed into the abyss, patiently picking my way from book to book until now: A mere 30 years later, I find myself three-and-one-quarter novels shy of my stated goal.

What lessons might we extrapolate from the tale to this point?

1. There’s no accounting for the exuberance and arrogance of youth.

2. There’s no way to predict where our dreams are taking us.

3. Choosing a destination is a hell of a lot easier than the journey itself.

4. Most important, from my perspective, is this: if I’d been a nicer “girl,” I’d still be in thrall to Hollywood and netting a sorry fraction of my current annual income.

9 Sue Grafton’s new book, Kinsey and Me, is being published this month. Grafton is an award-winning international best-selling author published in 29 countries and 27 languages, with a readership in the millions. Her readers appreciate her buoyant style, her eye for detail, her deft hand with character, her acute social observances and her abundant storytelling talents.

p hoto by l au rie rob e rt s

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FRIENDSHIP MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER

found brief happiness with a lover, but Peter discovered the affair, and now, pregnant again, she feels trapped. A crisis involving Peter’s 80-year-old mother, Birdy, leads to the settlement of all the women’s fates.

Hood’s fluent storytelling and empathy will ensure popularity, but her heroines’ destinies are devoid of surprises. (Author tour to Boston, New York, Providence, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle)

Higgins, Lisa Verge 5 Spot/Grand Central Publishing (352 pp.) $13.99 paperback | Mar. 19, 2013 978-1-4555-0031-4

A novel about friendship.

Higgins creates a compelling story of three middle-aged women traveling through Europe and facing challenges and fears. When Monique’s husband was dying of cancer four years earlier, he created a “bucket list,” not for the two of them to check off together, since he knew he did not have the time, but for her to complete alone. She puts it off, fearing it would somehow symbolize her moving on, and she is not ready to do that. What inspires her to finally take the trip is the news that her friend Becky has a degenerative eye disease and is going blind.

Monique wants Becky to get a first and last glimpse of castles in Europe. When her only daughter, Keira, refuses to accompany her mother on this trip, Monique invites another friend, Judy, to go with them. Judy remembers backpacking around Europe as a free-spirited young woman before returning to the U.S., settling down with a loving husband and raising five children, who are about to leave her an empty nester. The bucket list of activities turns out to be the inspiration for these three to love and help one another face and deal with losses and fears.

Readers who lose themselves in this wonderful book will be rewarded with the discovery of the value of true friendship.

THE UNCHANGEABLE SPOTS OF LEOPARDS

Jansma, Kristopher Viking (272 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 21, 2013 978-0-670-02600-5

A self-referential first novel about truth, plagiarism, identity and writer’s block.

He’s 8 years old, with only the kindly concession holders in the airport terminal to look after him; his mother, a flight attendant, has left him in their charge. (His father was a one-night stand during a layover.) What kind of a woman would treat her son like that?

We’ll never know; she never appears. Jansma is not interested in character-building, let alone plot. What’s more consequential is that the kid writes his first story in the terminal: It’s about a boy detective hiding in a trash can. Then (irony!) a real-world policeman sweeps it into the trash. Omens like these provide the novel’s steppingstones. Eight years later, the nameless narrator has an after-school job in a North Carolina art museum; keep in mind the 1863 portrait in gold of a nude woman. Next, the Nameless One is at a college in the Berkshires, where he becomes friends with Julian, another aspiring writer who’s gay, and the beautiful actress Evelyn. Later, Julian will publish a wildly successful novel; all the wretchedly unproductive Nameless can get published is a short story in an obscure journal. It’s a mashup, Julian as Anton Chekhov, and there’s a story-withinthe-story about an 1863 gilder. Jansma is enamored of these echo-chamber effects; years later, the American gilder has become a Tamil on a DVD. The characters remain without substance. Evelyn may be the love of the narrator’s life, or she may be a fantasy, as much a fantasy as her eventual husband, who morphs from a Hindu geologist into a prince of Luxembourg.

The narrator assumes a buddy’s identity, does some plagiarizing on the Internet and keeps moving, from Dubai to Sri Lanka to Ghana to Iceland to Luxembourg.

Jansma has a ways to go before he can master postmodern technique.

THE OBITUARY WRITER

Hood, Ann Norton (320 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 4, 2013 978-0-393-08142-8

Connections between an unhappy wife in the Kennedy era and an independent obituarist in early-20th-century California are artfully if predictably spliced in the latest from Hood (The Red Thread, 2010, etc.).

Claire, mother of Kathy and wife to handsome, conventional Peter, could be a character on the set of Mad Men. As President John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, she is both preoccupied with the color of Jackie’s outfit and skeptical about her marriage, which is proving to be an empty shell. In a parallel narrative set on the West Coast in 1919, we meet Vivien Lowe, who, as an obituary writer, has learned to “speak the language of grief ” and is in love with a ghost. Her married lover, David, disappeared in the 1906 earthquake, but 13 years later, Vivien is still waiting for his return. Hood’s engaging, detail-packed if static storylines dwell lengthily on the two women’s moods of loss and uncertainty. Claire, who realizes she doesn’t love Peter, |

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INNOCENCE

in 73 B.C., ever charged into a sword battle with the words “We go for it!”

Picking up from the author’s Spartacus: The Gladiator (2012), the story joins Spartacus and his troops as they savor an early victory over Rome. But trouble is already brewing: Spartacus celebrates his victory by staging a munus, in which 400 Roman captives are made to duel one-on-one until only one is left alive. It’s the first of a few signs that the gladiator’s bloodlust and thirst for power may be his undoing. Political intrigue mounts as his army begins to fragment, with his Gaulish generals plotting to seize control. There is also a feminist subtext as Spartacus’ wife, Ariadne, a priestess of Dionysus, becomes the first to see his fate. The story reaches a turning point when the pregnant Ariadne entreats him to flee into the Alps, but he remains compelled to carry his rebellion against increasing odds. Historical figures, including Julius Caesar and the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus, lend the story some legitimacy.

The parts heaviest on sex and violence are also the most enjoyable, including a sequence where Spartacus’ general Navio visits a brothel on a spying mission, gets charged by Romans at the most inopportune time and has to escape through a dung heap.

The book’s pulp-fiction cover art, where Spartacus looks rather like Mel Gibson, is somehow perfect.

Jones, Louis B. Counterpoint (160 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Mar. 12, 2013 978-1-61902-066-5 A characteristically quirky fourth novel from Jones (Radiance, 2011, etc.) explores how plastic surgery propels a middle-aged minister-turned-realtor into losing his virginity and contemplating marriage.

John Gegenuber had a harelip. But now, at 49, he’s had the disfigurement corrected and has made a new friend in his Recovery Group. Thalia Kunst, some 20 years his junior, also had a lip problem, but now, she’s been released into beauty. After a chaste kiss, Thalia makes a reservation for them at a fancy hotel, boldness overcoming her natural modesty. This is happening in Marin County, Calif., home of hot tubs, pricey real estate and apparently magical hookups.

John, a realtor, used to be an Episcopalian minister until he tired of church showbiz, though his faith is still intact. Thalia is a horticultural therapist, using mentally challenged adults as landscape gardeners. Their plastic surgeon happens to be one of her clients; John joins her and her charges on a trip to the doctor’s estate after the two have spent their big night together. No details are forthcoming, other than that their lovemaking did not include birth control measures. Their life as a married couple seems a foregone conclusion. John frequently pauses in his dryly humorous account to share his thoughts on religion, real estate and their affinities, so we’re kept off balance, and the author delights in curveballs, such as an imminent childbirth. Francesca, one of Thalia’s flock, goes into labor on the surgeon’s estate. A cesarean is required.

The doctor, in Europe, will walk them through the procedure on the phone. John must switch between the ordeal of cutting and handling a home-sale problem on his cellphone. This would be surreal if Jones’ portrayal of the operation, the attitudes of the mentally handicapped bystanders and the machinations of rival realtors was not so exceptionally convincing; only a satisfying conclusion eludes him.

Body and soul get equal consideration in a novel that confounds expectations of what will be revealed and concealed; perverse, perhaps, but undeniably piquant.

THIS CLOSE Stories

Kane, Jessica Francis Graywolf (200 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Mar. 5, 2013 978-1-55597-636-1 The third book and second story collection from Kane (The Report, 2010, etc.) offers 12 lucid, elegant and immersive stories about interpersonal strains and tensions among lovers, neighbors, children and their parents, and so on.

In “Lucky Boy,” a young New Yorker’s relationship with his dry cleaner veers from the comforts of mere commerce, and he finds himself cast in the role of catch-playing father figure— until and unless his fiancee, who’s colder and more city-savvy, steps in to end it, an intervention he seems both to desire and to dread. In “American Lawn,” a Croatian refugee rents garden space in a city backyard during a drought—and exposes a rift between lonely neighbors, devoted to their rivalrous ideas about what neighborliness is and should be, who compete in ever more childish and embarrassing ways for his attention. In the book’s most poignant story, “Next in Line,” a grieving mother haunts the drug store where an acerbic older woman seems simultaneously to chide her for bad parenting and to predict— with heart-rending accuracy—her toddler’s imminent death.

“The Essentials of Acceleration” features a 40-year-old woman who never achieved escape velocity. She lives in her hometown, stuck in a way she knows all too well but can’t quite acknowledge, alongside her father, a retired professor who stays active and popular despite his gathering infirmities. She’s haunted less

SPARTACUS: REBELLION

Kane, Ben St. Martin’s (464 pp.) $26.99 | May 14, 2013 978-1-250-01277-7

This historical yarn from Kane (The Forgotten Legion, 2009, etc.) isn’t your grandfather’s Spartacus, or even Stanley Kubrick’s. But it likely marks the first time that the Thracian gladiator, who began his rebellion against Rome 16

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BEING ESTHER

by the tragedy of her mother’s accidental death than by resentment of her father for having, unforgivably, soldiered on afterward. Several of the stories feature inward, dour, private people who simultaneously envy and scorn those who seem to have an easier time of it: the gift of gab, the sunny disposition, the ability to put heartbreak and recrimination behind them, the yen to act rather than merely longing silently and crabbily from the sidelines. The stories are quiet—Kane has little interest in stylistic pyrotechnics, flashy plots or formal play—but they are subtle, persuasive and psychologically complex.

Another worthy book from a fine writer.

Karmel, Miriam Milkweed (208 pp.) $22.00 | Apr. 2, 2013 978-1-57131-096-5 Over the course of her last days, widowed Esther Lustig, 85 years old and determined to avoid being placed in Cedar Shores (aka Bingoville), reflects upon her life.

A photograph from the past sparks this tale. Snapped in 1944, two weeks before Esther’s date died in the war, the picture shows Esther with her best friends, who had spontaneously jumped on stage, mugging for the camera as an imaginative girl band, the Starrlites. Now Esther wants to find her friend Sonia. As Esther’s narrative toggles back and forth between her past and her present, she worries whether she has made any lasting impression upon the world. Born to parents raised in a Polish shtetl, Esther learned modesty and frugality,

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“Keenum’s debut signals a writer to watch.” from where the light falls

THE RAGE

neither of which appealed to her haughty mother-in-law, Toots Lustig, who chided her rustic cooking skills. Her husband, Marty, ate like a horse but strayed from his marital vows. Esther recalls her attraction to Marty but also her frustration with his domineering manner. Orbiting around Esther are her family, particularly Ceely, who is mysteriously angry with Esther and eager to shuffle her into a nursing home; her friends, several of whom have died or sunk into dementia; and the outside world, filled with rude and well-meaning people, all of whom treat Esther as an insignificant old woman. An awkward phone call to Sonia’s husband, a showdown with a rude customer at the market, a barely expressed quarrel with Ceely—these scenes, like a collection of photographs, accrue and build toward Esther’s acceptance of her past, which leaves her ready to slip into the next world.

Karmel’s debut novel is a quiet contemplation of a woman’s final days.

Kerrigan, Gene Europa Editions (336 pp.) $17.00 paperback | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-60945-092-2 In contemporary Dublin, a hastily devised robbery and its aftermath unfold from the perspectives of diverse perps, cops and witnesses.

Such is the moral ambiguity surrounding Detective Sgt. Bob Tidey’s job that the very first time he is to take the stand in an important case as a witness rather than an investigator, he struggles with whether to commit perjury by contradicting his original statement, something that will cause him headaches at work but smooth the ruffled feathers of a local politico. Meanwhile, unrepentant thief Vincent Naylor, back on the street after a stint in prison, has no such reservations about returning to his life of crime. He and his brother Noel, teaming up with minor crime boss Albert Bannerman, hatch a plan to rob a van used by the Ulster Bank. As Vincent gets a closer look at Bannerman’s ragtag gang, he has second thoughts, exacerbated by his cresting love for hairdresser Michelle Flood, but eventually decides that it’s too late to turn back. Tidey gets a heads-up about the plan from Maura Coady, a retired and very observant nun with whom he has a deep and complex relationship. (An elliptical prologue foreshadows the relationship and the death of a man named Emmett Sweetman, which will cast a long shadow over later events.) Missteps in the crime generate their own subplots, which Kerrigan (Little Criminals, 2005, etc.) juggles deftly.

An ambitious and nuanced panorama of law and order in Ireland’s mean streets, balancing literary elements and full-bodied character portraits with a believable depiction of cops and criminals at work.

WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS

Keenum, Katherine Berkley (480 pp.) $16.00 paperback | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-425-25778-4

Sent home from Vassar in disgrace, Jeanette Palmer is a romantic—after all, she did help her friend elope—and a gifted painter. But how can she cultivate her talents in Circleville, Ohio?

Set in late-19th-century belle epoque, when the arts flourished and the horrors of World War I had not yet occurred, Keenum’s debut novel is based upon her own great-grandmother’s life. Appalled at her disgrace, Jeanette’s parents send meek Cousin Effie to fetch her home. As she nervously awaits her parents’ arrival, Jeanette endures Aunt Maude’s interrogation, which beautiful, stylish, married Cousin Adeline knows is just a front for gossiping. To calm her nerves, Jeanette sketches Effie’s face, which so delights Effie that she arranges for Jeanette to sketch Maude—an effort to demonstrate her real skill to her family. The ploy works, and soon Jeanette, chaperoned by Effie, finds herself en route to Paris to study art. Meanwhile, back in Cincinnati, pharmacist Edward Murer struggles with the twin demons of Civil War memories and a laudanum addiction. After years of barely engaging with the world, Edward begins slipping deeper into depression, to the alarm of his family. His brother Theodore lights on a scheme: send Edward to Europe as a chaperone for his son Carl’s grand tour. (Perhaps there, Carl will be supervising Edward’s return to life.) A dinner party brings Jeanette and Edward together, as Carl accidentally reveals Jeanette’s scandalous past. As the weeks pass, Jeanette delights in her studies, navigates the dangerous waters of licentious men and finds herself drawn to the wounded pharmacist. For his part, Edward’s demons have pursued him across the sea, yet each encounter with Jeanette shines a little more light into his soul.

Sweeping in scope, with vividly drawn, rich characters, Keenum’s debut signals a writer to watch.

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THE WALKING

Khadivi, Laleh Bloomsbury (272 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-1-59691-699-9 In this awkward second novel, a young man flees Iran in the wake of the 1979 revolution that deposed the Shah and installed the mullahs.

See the refugee. Watch him cross the border. See him adrift in a strange city. Seventeen-year-old Saladin is an ethnic Kurd and an Iranian citizen. His father was the protagonist of Khadivi’s debut (The Age of Orphans, 2009), a police captain who did the Shah’s dirty work; now he goes along with the mullahs’ decision to execute some Kurdish “rebels” in a remote valley. However, Saladin’s big brother Ali shoots three of the firing squad, and the brothers race away. So, very specifically, Saladin is fleeing a crime scene, but too often he is the Universal Refugee, the one with nothing but the |

ALL THE LIGHT THERE WAS

shirt on his back. There are other refugees, more well-heeled; they are not individuated, but given voice through the firstperson plural. It’s a tricky device, and it distracts from Saladin’s story, especially when Khadivi intrudes, cataloging the eventual destinations of the migrants, with Los Angeles absorbing the largest number. It’s Saladin’s destination too. We see him walking the streets; half-heartedly seeking work at a steelworks and a gas station; spending long hours in cinemas, for he has inherited his mother’s love of movies. Khadivi details his escape with his brother in flashbacks: their ride with smugglers into Turkey, followed by a hellish journey on a freighter to the Azores, where they part company, Saladin stowing away on a flight to California.

None of this achieves the drama of the execution scene; nor do Saladin’s travails in Tinseltown. When Americans are taken hostage in Tehran, Saladin the scapegoat is beaten up in a bar before meeting his savior, an indulgent Iranian rug seller who hires him on the spot. Even his encounter with a young Afghan woman, an apprentice streetwalker, goes nowhere.

More an outline than a fully realized novel.

Kricorian, Nancy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (288 pp.) $24.00 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-547-93994-0 One more account of the four-year occupation of Paris in World War II, this time seen through the eyes of an Armenian teenager morphing from clever child to heart-torn woman.

The normal events of daily life— studying for exams, meeting friends—are interleaved with loss and despair in the latest from Kricorian (Dreams of Bread and Fire, 2003, etc.), set in France in the 1940s, where the invading German troops’ arrival heralds a descent into hunger and peril. Maral Pegorian’s family is Armenian and has survived its own history of massacres and deportations before settling in a Parisian suburb. Now they watch anxiously, and intervene to save a child, as Jewish neighbors and schoolmates are rounded

CHILD OF VENGEANCE

Kirk, David Doubleday (336 pp.) $25.95 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-385-53663-9

Kirk presents 17th-century Japan as a world imbued with stately rituals, unshakable principles and a rigid moral code.

Munisai Shinmen has faced an implacable enemy and has emerged with both body and honor intact, so his training as a samurai has served him well. Shortly after the first battle Kirk depicts, we get a sense of how the culture of honor operates when Lord Kanno, the defeated enemy, plaintively asks how to commit seppuku, for he doesn’t know how it’s done and he wishes to die an honorable death—he’s 9 years old. Violence is not confined to the battlefield, however, for an enraged Munisai has also killed his wife and her lover. Munisai eventually goes back to reclaim his young son, Bennosuke, whom he left eight years before in the care of Munisai’s brother Dorinbo, a Shinto monk. Though injured, Munisai takes over his son’s training, and the youngster (he’s only 13) begins to realize his promise as a future samurai when he defeats Kihei Arima (aka “Lightning Hand”), who’s already killed six men in single combat and is eager to add a seventh. Issues of honor re-emerge when Munisai presents himself to his lord, Hideie Ukita, to commit seppuku for one of Bennosuke’s transgressions. Kirk instills the ritual with great dignity as Munisai commits the ultimate act to “expunge all shame.” Bennosuke then continues to confirm his stance as a celebrated samurai by participating in the battle of Sekigahara and claiming a “new” identity as Musashi Miyamoto, one of the most renowned swordsmen in samurai history.

While not having the epic scope of Shogun, Kirk’s novel is sure to be compared to Clavell’s work in its superb depiction of samurai culture. |

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“Fans of crime thrillers shouldn’t miss this one.” from criminal enterprise

CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE

up and taken away. While her brother Missak gets involved in Resistance work, Maral falls in love with his best friend, Zaven.

Forced underground, Zaven and his brother are eventually arrested by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp.

After the liberation, only one brother returns, but the consequent trauma and somberness give way to freer, happier emotions as the war years fade.

More chronicle than plotted narrative, this is conventional, moderate fare, although Kricorian’s intermittently graceful prose can sometimes distract from the predictability and romantic soupiness.

Laukkanen, Owen Putnam (416 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 21, 2013 978-0-399-15790-5

With this second thriller in a series, Laukkanen’s latest provides an entertaining worst-case scenario of an accountant gone bad.

Carter Tomlin has a lovely wife, daughter and home, but the good life in Minnesota comes crashing down when he’s laid off from his accounting job. Now no one wants to hire him, and consulting can’t pay the bills. How can he support his family and their lifestyle? Well, banks have money. He’ll rob one. Just one ballsy heist to tide him over, and he’s done. It doesn’t yield him enough cash, though, and he discovers that scaring the living bejesus out of harmless bank tellers is a lot more fun than balancing books.

So, he has to amp up his game, and he and a young lady partner go for bigger scores. Bullets start to fly, and soon, Tomlin is in much deeper trouble than he’d ever expected—and he’s loving it, all while his innocent family remains clueless. Meanwhile, FBI agent Carla Windermere and detective Kirk Stevens team up to identify the robber and try to bring him down. They’ve previously worked together in Laukkanen’s debut, The Professionals (2012), and have a professional and personal chemistry that makes them fun to follow and easy to root for. Tomlin takes them through plenty of twists and turns as he becomes increasingly unhinged and dangerous—even other bad guys had best give him a wide berth.

Fans of crime thrillers shouldn’t miss this one or anything else with Laukkanen’s name on the cover. The writing is so crisp, the pages almost want to turn themselves.

He’s a terrific storyteller.

ORDINARY GRACE

Krueger, William Kent Atria (320 pp.) $24.99 | Mar. 26, 2013 978-1-4516-4582-8

A respected mystery writer turns his attention to the biggest mystery of all: God. An award-winning author for his longrunning Cork O’ Connor series (Trickster’s Point, 2012, etc.), Krueger aims higher and hits harder with a stand-alone novel that shares much with his other work. The setting is still his native Minnesota, the tension with the region’s Indian population remains palpable and the novel begins with the discovery of a corpse, that of a young boy who was considered a little slow and whose body was found near the train trestle in the woods on the outskirts of town. Was it an accident or something even more sinister? Yet, that opening fatality is something of a red herring (and that initial mystery is never really resolved), as it serves as a prelude to a series of other deaths that shake the world of Frank Drum, the 13-year-old narrator (occasionally from the perspective of his memory of these events, four decades later), his stuttering younger brother and his parents, whose marriage may well not survive these tragedies. One of the novel’s pivotal mysteries concerns the gaps among what Frank experiences (as a participant and an eavesdropper), what he knows and what he thinks he knows. “In a small town, nothing is private,” he realizes. “Word spreads with the incomprehensibility of magic and the speed of plague.” Frank’s father, Nathan, is the town’s pastor, an aspiring lawyer until his military experience in World War II left him shaken and led him to his vocation. His spouse chafes at the role of minister’s wife and doesn’t share his faith, though “the awful grace of God,” as it manifests itself within the novel, would try the faith of the most devout believer. Yet, ultimately, the world of this novel is one of redemptive grace and mercy, as well as unidentified corpses and unexplainable tragedy.

A novel that transforms narrator and reader alike.

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ISCARIOT

Lee, Tosca Howard Books/Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) $22.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-4516-8376-9 Alone among the 12 disciples, Jesus of Nazareth called Judas “friend,” but it was Judas who betrayed Christ.

Lee (Mortal, 2012, etc.) imagines herself into the heart of Judas Iscariot, rendering witness to the manifestation of God incarnate in first person. Judas bar Simon was born in a troubled Jerusalem that saw the Roman boot firmly on the neck of Israel. Viewing the lost apostle through a modern lens, Judas is revealed as a narcissist, neurotically guilt-ridden and intent on bearing the weight of every perceived wrong. This mindset is examplified in his family’s fleeing the holy city after rumors of Herod’s death sparked a bloody rebellion. There is an eclipse, and young Judas believes his |

violation of the Sabbath fast has sparked the world’s end. Judas also loves and envies his brilliant older brother, Joshua. But as Romans rage across Israel, Joshua disappears from their refuge in Sepphoris while their father is captured and crucified. Judas and his mother escape, surviving only because his mother sacrifices herself to prostitution. A half brother, Nathan, is born. Later, with the help of relatives, Judas becomes a scribe and a clerk.

He’s then recruited by the Sons of the Teacher, a rebel group.

Soon, Judas becomes entranced by the frenzy wrought by John the Baptizer. It’s then that Judas meets Jesus, glimpsing “within those sunken eyes mystery and pain to match my own.” Focusing through Judas, Lee writes movingly of Jesus’ mission: the healing of lepers and the lame; the raising of Lazarus; of Christ’s utter disregard for Hebrew Law in the face of want and suffering. Relying on other disciples only as reference points, Lee dissects Judas’ evolution, “The Israel of my dreams was gone, replaced only by lepers who needed healing, the sick and the hungry.” Judas expects revolution. Jesus offers spiritual salvation. Judas’ love for Jesus compels him to bargain with the Pharisees Zadok and Caiaphas in an attempt to preserve Jesus’ life. The Son of Man is charged with mesith, leading Israel astray, and crucified.

Intelligently imagined.

end. The newly minted prophet gives us about five years, “time enough to sample all the yearning young hippie tang.” This scintillating black comedy ends (surprise) violently. There are times, though, when the violent ending seems willed and gratuitous.

The high school coach in “Ode to Oldcorn” is a fervent admirer of the champion shot putter. Was it really necessary for their reunion to end in broken bones?

That forcing and a tendency to pile on are the only things preventing the dark vision of this smart, hip, supertalented writer from being truly memorable.

THE FUN PARTS Stories

Lipsyte, Sam Farrar, Straus and Giroux (240 pp.) $24.00 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-374-29890-6 Freaks, misfits and addicts crowd this second collection from Lipsyte (The Ask, 2010, etc.); his stories are beyond mordant.

An older man abandons his dying wife for his girlfriend in “The Worm in Philly.” Lipsyte’s characters inhabit a cold, hard world, but Tovah Gold is desperate to fit somewhere, somehow in “The Climber Room.” The preschool teacher, still single at 36, wants a baby. Her fantasy of marriage to the school’s richest donor crumbles when the old goat starts out by masturbating. (If you’re wondering about the collection’s title, check your body.) The situation of Mandy, in “Deniers,” is even more dire. A recovering addict, she has just extricated herself from a destructive relationship with a fellow addict when she becomes involved with her stalker. Cal, with his violently anti-Semitic past, is hardly an appropriate mate for a nice Jewish girl. That stalker seems tame compared to the prize freak in “The Wisdom of the Doulas.” Mitch is an overweight, potty-mouthed “lactation consultant” who assists postpartum mothers. Problem is, Mitch wants some of that mother’s milk for himself. It gets physical between him and the outraged father; violence is a constant in Lipsyte’s world. “The Republic of Empathy” ends with an inoffensive young father being burned to a crisp in a drone attack; yes, folks, drones are coming to an American neighborhood near you. What Gunderson fears, in “The Real-Ass Jumbo,” is that the whole world may |

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OUR FRAIL BLOOD

communications—is needed for a rapid response to an assault on the MSC Contessa, pirated off Somali. Helicopter insertion, Zodiac assault and dead pirates result. However, in the firefight, Crocker discovers the pirates are commanded by Iranian Revolutionary Corps Col. Farhed Alizadeh, and the hijack is an attempt to purloin yellow cake uranium, vital in nuclear weapon construction. The colonel’s trail leads to chaotic Libya, the oil-rich nation recovering from dictator Gadhafi’s overthrow. Mann, the SEAL veteran author, detours between pirate-killing and Libya to send Team Crocker to compete in a Moroccan ultraendurance marathon, mainly to stress SEAL physical fitness and list a litany of special ops outdoor products ranging from Adidas to Suunto watches. That expertise gibes with Mann’s tactics and weapons know-how factoids sprinkled throughout the narrative, giving the story ring-true authority.

Nevertheless, pace and intensity are cinematic, nonstop and superhuman compared to the reported real-life exploits of special operations troops. Sent undercover as an engineering team but assigned to find clues to the smuggling of nuclear material from anarchic Libya to terror-sponsoring Iran, Crocker and team deal with CIA obfuscation and NATO dithering. The mission goes to hell in a handbasket after Crocker learns that his wife, Holly, a State Department official, has been kidnapped

by Gadhafi-loyalist Tuareg nomads apparently aligned with the nasty colonel. Add multiple shootouts, the notorious Pharm 150 site, secreted mustard blister agents and sarin nerve gases, ampules of uranium hexaflouride, the hijacking of an ancient 727-200, and there’s sufficient tension to keep the pages turning.

All action, all the time.

Malae, Peter Nathaniel Black Cat/Grove (448 pp.) $15.95 paperback | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-8021-2078-6 The turbulent story of the Felice family, spanning over a half century.

Maria, the family’s matriarch, lies in an Elysium Fields Hospice bed while one roommate after another dies and is replaced. Why won’t she die? To put it another way, why is she even in a hospice? Malae spins a yarn about a family in the process of forgetting about her well before she is dead and about the few people who still care about her. From chapter to chapter, the tale bounces back and forth from the 1950s through the first decade of this century, ultimately revealing a dark but unsurprising secret. Most readers, it would seem, hope that a novel gives them someone to root for. Don’t look for much of that here—Maria is sympathetic but necessarily passive, and the bulimic Murron is OK if you don’t expect too much from her, although she alone in the story does her best. But Maria’s five children are certainly nothing to cheer about. In daughter Mary Anna’s eyes, the worst thing about the Vietnam War was that her brother Johnny survived it. No doubt, Malae tells a strong if depressing story, painting scenes in vivid and sometimes microscopic detail.

But he is prolix and a tad pretentious, often meandering through the characters’ thoughts using convoluted sentences before finally making his point. At the same time, the book probes many of the weaknesses (and few of the strengths) of family dynamics. It is easy to imagine damaged families like the Felices, and America doubtless has thousands of families whose problems are at least as bad.

Maybe that is a redeeming feature of this book: that it speaks to the weaknesses—our frail blood—that so many of us share.

While not uplifting, this is a thoughtful work that will appeal to readers who enjoy literary fiction. (Agent: Jennifer Joel)

A WHITE WIND BLEW

Markert, James Sourcebooks Landmark (400 pp.) $25.99 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-1-4022-7837-2 A tuberculosis epidemic, as seen through the eyes of a sanatorium doctor driven by his love of God and music.

According to the author of this first novel, Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium was a real place on a hilltop outside Louisville, Ky. The locals were fearful of the white wind blowing down on them. In the winter of 1929, two doctors handle 500 patients. Some will leave symptom-free, but more will die. Dr. Wolfgang Pike finds playing his harmonica or violin soothes his patients. The 31-year-old doctor inherited his love of music from his Protestant father; where Wolfgang differed was in his embrace of Catholicism. His pursuit of the priesthood faltered when he met the lovely Rose outside a cathedral.

The two young Catholics ministered to soldiers during the great flu epidemic of 1918. They married; five years later, Wolfgang lost Rose in a traffic accident. By then, the seminarian was a doctor, still hoping to become a priest one day. At Waverly, his hectic life is further burdened by Ku Klux Klan members harassing him. They burn a cross outside the nearby “colored”

SEAL TEAM SIX: HUNT THE SCORPION

Mann, Don with Pezzullo, Ralph Mulholland Books/Little, Brown (336 pp.) $25.99 | Feb. 19, 2013 978-0-316-20960-1

In his second in the series, Mann (SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Wolf, 2012) rips another Thomas Crocker kill-the-bad-guys action adventure straight from the headlines.

Chief Warrant Officer Tom Crocker is a multimission veteran in the war against terror. He has the battle discipline to stand down from a chance to kill a terrorist in Yemen when desk-jockeys send word down the satellite link. It seems Crocker’s assault team—Calvin, stoic sniper; Mancini, intellectual weapons specialist; Ritchie, explosives handler; Akil, EgyptianAmerican logistics expert; California-surfer-look-alike Davis, 22

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A sexy, successful contemporary romance, with chemistry, heat and a feel-good, affecting happy-ever-after ending that its intended audience will approve.

hospital. Their mischief is counterbalanced by the arrival of a new patient, McVain, an ornery guy but a talented pianist.

Soon, the novel settles into the familiar groove of an inspirational work. McVain overcomes his bigotry to play with a black flutist and a Jewish violinist. Wolfgang organizes the healthier patients into a choir; there will be a concert. Naturally, there are setbacks; the senior doctor is opposed, and there’s even a horrific lynching, but the concert is a triumph for conductor Wolfgang and pianist McVain, even though they are the last notes he will ever play. The action is not quite over. Wolfgang succumbs to carnal temptation for the second time and marries a nurse, Susannah. This one will be a brief marriage, as her tuberculosis proves fatal.

Markert’s weakness for murderous melodrama trivializes a dark time in medical history.

LIFE AFTER LIFE

McCorkle, Jill Algonquin (352 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 26, 2013 978-1-56512-255-0 Assisted living residents and a hospice worker confront the inevitable with grit and humor.

A potentially clichéd unifying device, the claustrophobic world of Pine Haven Retirement Facility (located next to a cemetery no less), is here put to innovative use. Passing the narrative baton are Pine Haven’s residents and staff, friends and spouses, all confined, willingly or not, to McCorkle’s familiar turf, Fulton, N.C. Joanna, a hospice worker rescued from suicide by a dog, finds fulfillment easing the passage of the dying.

Abby, who inhabits the house next to Pine Haven, is an outcast preteen with a social-climbing mother, Kendra, and a feckless, unreliable father, Ben (a magician and Joanna’s childhood friend). Abby, a daily visitor to Pine Haven, bereft after the disappearance of her dog, Dollbaby, finds a mentor in 85-year-old Sadie, a former third-grade teacher. Sadie discovers a kindred spirit in another teacher, Toby, Pine Haven’s youngest retiree, who bemoans the sorry state of children’s literature today. C.J., a pierced and tattooed single mom who does hair and nails at Pine Haven, has a much older married lover who is also the father of her son, Kurt. Rachel, a widowed Jewish lawyer from Boston, comes to Pine Haven to take up residence near her deceased paramour, Joe, who is buried, along with his wife, in the adjoining cemetery. Stanley, one of Fulton’s most prominent citizens, is sliding into dementia, cajoling, goading and insulting Pine Haven’s female majority, and reveling in bizarre obsessions: WWF stars and ’60s-era lounge lizard LPs. But could his apparent Alzheimer’s be a bid for independence instead of dependency? Seemingly unrelated and insignificant clues sowed throughout raise other questions as these lives coalesce. For example, is Dollbaby really missing? Who’s leaving notes in a cemetery vase? Are both Kendra and C.J. placing their hopes in the same married man? Any residual predictability is dispelled by the jaw-dropping ending.

McCorkle’s masterful microcosm invokes profound sadness, harsh insight and guffaws, often on the same page.

HIP CHECK

Martin, Deirdre Berkley Sensation (352 pp.) $7.99 paperback | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-425-25115-7 Bad-boy pro-hockey player Esa Saari lives for hockey and not much else, and he doesn’t see why becoming the guardian of his niece has to change things—no matter what the cute-but-demanding nanny has to say about it or how much she’s getting under his skin.

Blades star Esa Saari’s world is turned upside down when he becomes the guardian of Nell, his 8-year-old niece, and knocked sideways when he realizes he has a thing for Michelle Beck, the nanny he hired to care for her. For a man who’s always appreciated the smooth glide of an uncomplicated life, he’s finding it harder and harder to remain detached and disinterested, especially with Michelle encouraging him to step up, participate more and to be honest about his emotions with the sweetly fragile girl. Esa was raised in an emotionally distant home, and he’s never stopped to consider an alternative. That is, until now, when even he notices that Nell is looking to him for support and comfort. Michelle is a guiding light for both of them, and together, the threesome forms a protective cocoon against the world. But when Esa acts on his blazing attraction for the nanny and she responds, their cozy world will be ripped apart by a slew of negative factors, and their fledging relationship will be tested by family, friends and his very public lifestyle and negative reputation. Martin has penned an emotionally touching romance set in the tough, raw world of professional hockey, and her characters are realistic and appealing, with relatable, coherent arcs that make sense and show appreciable growth (though a touch less vulgarity in the dialogue would have been welcome). Even when Esa and Michelle make irritating, troublesome choices, they make sense for the flaws and struggles of the personalities involved, and we cheer for them as they overcome their mistakes and vulnerabilities.

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“A sweet, fun and satisfying read.” from the temptation of your touch

THE TEMPTATION OF YOUR TOUCH

command of a man with a mask, an AK-47 and a very short temper. Yet Martin is a lot luckier than Brendan Lyons, the retired bus driver who offered to help the gunman collect the loot and got thoroughly shot for his trouble. It seems clear that the robber recognized the old man, but even so, why would he feel the need to kill him? DS Alexandra Morrow would love to bear down hard on the case, but as usual, there are other problems.

After pulling over dicey driver Hugh Boyle, DC Tamsin Leonard and DC George Wilder have found £200,000 concealed in his car; instead of turning it in, Wilder’s had the bright idea of splitting it between themselves; and the surprisingly resourceful Boyle has photographed them in possession of the loot. So, even though Alex gets a promising lead that links the gunman to the anonymous figure who menaced householder Anita Costello three years ago, Strathclyde’s finest is hardly enjoying its finest hour. Higher up in the social ranks (though equally far down the ethical scale), Labour MP Kenny Gallagher is battling rumors that he’s taken party volunteer Jill Bowman, 17, under more than his wing—rumors that are particularly hard to scotch since they’re true.

As Gallagher faces the ruin of his career, readers will wonder how Alex (The End of the Wasp Season, 2011, etc.) can possibly tie these cases together. Though the final surprise doesn’t have the snap of logical inevitability, it’s depressingly realistic.

Medeiros, Teresa Pocket (384 pp.) $7.99 paperback | Jan. 29, 2013 978-1-4391-5790-9

After his fiancee abandons him at the altar to marry his brother, Max Burke flees London for the isolation of a ramshackle, reputedly haunted castle in Cornwall, where he’ll contend with a surly, secretive staff, a mesmerizing portrait of a woman-turned-ghost and a housekeeper he’s tempted to strangle—or seduce.

Maximilian Burke has spent his life following the rules and living up to his father’s expectations, while his brother tested boundaries at every turn, landing him the girl they both loved.

After months of playing the rogue, Max can’t stand either the man he was or the one he’s turned into, so he escapes from society to Cadgwyck Manor, his family’s recently acquired estate on the Cornwall coast, believed to be haunted by the wild, beautiful girl who’d brought her family to ruin and then jumped to her death in the sea. Even while heartsick and lonely, Max understands that things are not quite as they seem at Cadgwyck, and Miss Ann Spencer, the seemingly prim and proper housekeeper, hides any number of secrets behind her pretty eyes. As Max searches for clues to the mystery of the ghost, and Ann attempts to thwart his efforts at every turn, their actions will rouse a silent enemy looking for justice and place the entire household in grave danger—forcing Ann and Max to join forces and face their growing attraction. Medeiros is a beloved, best-selling romance author, and she doesn’t disappoint with this follow-up to The Pleasure of Your Kiss (2012). Readers are swept into a lively, moving historical romance that is textured and dynamic, with humor, passion and a subtly intriguing ghost mystery that the reader will learn the answer to early on but will remain invested in as Ann, Max and the other players unwrap layers of secrets, guilt, despair and desire.

Engaging characters, a tight, well-drawn plot that is complex and captivating, and an overall tone that manages to be both lighthearted and emotionally lush make this a sweet, fun and satisfying read.

THE WITCH OF LITTLE ITALY

Palmieri, Suzanne St. Martin’s Griffin (320 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Mar. 26, 2013 978-1-250-01551-8

In her debut novel, Palmieri has combined romance and mystery, folklore and psychology to create a jigsaw puzzle of family secrets and tragedies, losses and loves, guilt and forgiveness.

In the first chapter, we are told by Aunt Itsy about the Amore women’s gift of “Sigh,”—their ability to see the future—and at the end of the novel, we learn how Itsy tries and succeeds in changing what she sees. In the second chapter, we are introduced to Itsy’s niece, the glamorous but lonely actress Carmen, and her daughter Eleanor, aka Elly.

We learn that Eleanor must be very bright, as she is a senior at Yale, that she is a talented painter and that she is newly pregnant. When she confronts her mother with this momentous news, she is disappointed in her mother’s reaction: She advises her to get an abortion and get on with her life. Not receiving the love and comfort she was hoping for from her mother, she decides to go to the Bronx, where her mother’s family shares a house, to seek the support of extended family. She also needs to escape an abusive boyfriend. Once she arrives at the family home, she has doubts about this move, but her old childhood crush, Anthony, helps her to overcome these, and she takes her place as a member of a family of women who love and want her among them. The story is told from the alternating points of

GODS AND BEASTS

Mina, Denise Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown (304 pp.) $25.99 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-316-18852-4 Who would shoot an inoffensive retiree in the middle of an otherwise routine robbery?

One minute, geology student Martin Pavel is queued up at the post office; the next, he’s lying on the floor at the 24

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view of Itsy, Elly and the sisters Amore, with their memories combining to answer Elly’s lingering questions.

Entertaining.

Robinson, Jeremy Dunne/St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $25.99 | Mar. 26, 2013 978-0-312-61787-5

IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

The novel’s premise is reminiscent of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, but the author adds a World War II back story and a contemporary setting to make it a generic, improbable thriller.

Robinson (Ragnarok, 2012, etc.) gives us the scientific vessel Magellan, on a mission to explore the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating mass of trash in the Pacific, and study its environmental impact on sea life. We meet Mark Hawkins, former park ranger, unofficially adopted son of a Ute, Howie GoodTracks, who taught him tracking, ecology and platitudes about predation. Mark, aka Ranger, saves crew member Dr. Avril Joliet, holder of two Ph.D.s in biology and oceanography, from a shark while she is trying to salvage a sea turtle with strange injuries. Joliet is beautiful and impulsive, good both at heart and with a scalpel. Of course, Hawkins has fallen for her. Hawkins’ roommate is Bob Bray, a paunchy high school science teacher on sabbatical, with useful knowledge about the tortured history of the denizens of the island of the title. Capt. Drake, his engineers, cooks and interns are all introduced just in time: A storm is brewing, and the ship’s systems are on the fritz. When they wake up, the ship is in a lagoon, and members of the crew are missing. Hawkins, Bray and Joliet go ashore to search. When they find signs of past occupation, the story shifts from the improbable to the preposterous. It is not long before we get vivisection, genetic engineering, Black Ops, animal husbandry and mayhem.

This is the stuff that comic books, video games and successful genre franchises are made of.

Ratner, Austin Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown (320 pp.) $25.99 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-316-20609-9 Two generations of men tussle with love, medicine and fatherhood in this rambling follow-up to Ratner’s 2009 debut, The Jump Artist.

The heroes of this story are Isidore Auberon, who transcends his abusive Jewish-immigrant home in Cleveland to become a respected doctor, and his son Leo, who’s frustrated by his inability to live up to his late father’s legacy. Ratner frames the story, particularly Isidore’s part of it, as a kind of modern-day medieval myth: Chapters about him have lengthy, faux-Arthurian titles (“Of Isidore’s Quest for a Damosel for to Make a Home….”). Little in his story, though, seems worthy of such finery—Isidore joins the Merchant Marine, becomes a doctor, marries and settles down, events that don’t quite merit Ratner’s efforts to inflate them. And if the point is that Leo overestimates his father’s importance, his own share of the narrative is similarly pedestrian. There are flashes of humor in Leo’s adolescent anxieties about girls and getting into an Ivy League school, and the closing section in which he hits the road with his brother gets some energy from the eccentric characters they meet. But this novel is persistently, frustratingly unsteady on its feet from start to finish. Ratner (himself a doctor) fails to settle on a consistent tone, shuttling from pungent sentences to dialogue full of pop-culture riffs to melodrama to punning irony—the mood is seriocomic, but the line between what’s serious and what’s comic feels uncertain and uncontrolled. Max has the essential elements of a great Salinger-esque hero—bright, precocious, haunted by family—but we don’t get to truly know him until a third of the way through the book, and his frustrations with dad never gain clear focus.

This could be a family epic crudely whittled down or a sketch of one. Either way, this book doesn’t match its ambition.

FIREFLY

Sarduy, Severo Translated by Fried, Mark Archipelago (240 pp.) $16.00 paperback | Mar. 19, 2013 978-1-935744-64-1 The penultimate novel by Cuban author Sarduy (Cobra, 1972, etc.).

This book would seem to be a translator’s nightmare, but Fried has maintained the dark beauty and mystery of the work, originally published three years before the author’s death from AIDS in 1993. Sarduy’s circuslike world takes some getting used to. His hero, Firefly, is a young boy growing up in pre-Castro Cuba; in a David Lynch-ian touch, his name relates to his bald and oversized head. The narrative takes the first of many surreal turns in the first chapter, when Firefly puts rat poison in his family’s tea to keep them from noticing his fear in a thunderstorm.

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GHANA MUST GO

Munificence. His experiences are both disturbing and sensually charged. He watches while Ada, the woman he loves, is ritually bathed in lime juice and then pierced through the ears. His own sexual initiation occurs at the hands of two forceful, oversized creatures of uncertain gender. His first cigar is another kind of initiation, one that sends Firefly into a dream world. The story quickly loses any linear coherence it has, but the flow of images is dazzling and ultimately quite haunting. In the final chapter, Firefly’s world is now a wasteland, and he is racked with nausea.

The closing image returns to the first chapter’s poison episode and is likely the author’s vision of Cuba to come: The innocence is now gone, and the violent impulses remain.

Rich poetry, elusive plotting and layered images make for an interesting read.

Selasi, Taiye Penguin Press (336 pp.) $25.95 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-1-59420-449-4

The bonds of love, loss and misunderstanding connecting an African family are exhaustively dissected in a convoluted first novel.

The death of Kweku Sai, a noted surgeon, in the garden of his home in Accra, Ghana, on page one is followed by an impressionistic account of his life—glimpses of childhood and parenthood, moments of shame and bad decisions, regrets, ironies and final thoughts.

One central event was the breakup of Kweku’s marriage to Fola and separation from his four children: Olu, twins Taiwo and Kehinde and youngest Sadie. The remainder of the book follows the impact of the patriarch’s death on this group, which assembles for the funeral. Olu, now half of a Boston-based “golden couple,” doesn’t believe in family. Taiwo is still in therapy after her high-profile student affair with the dean of law. Artist Kehinde, hiding in Brooklyn, yearns shamefully for his sister.

And anxious Sadie is bulimic and withdrawn. This complicated cast is matched by Selasi’s taste for fragmented, overloaded sentences: “That still farther, past ‘free,’ there lay ‘loved,’ in her laughter, lay ‘home’ in her touch, in the soft of her Afro?” More secrets, wounds and identity crises are rehashed in Africa, until the scattering of the ashes restores some unity.

Introverted, clotted, short of narrative drive and, above all, unconvincing, this sensitive but obsessive family anatomization will test the patience of many readers.

A TIME FOR WAR

Savage, Michael St. Martin’s (336 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-312-65162-6

Conservative radio host turned man of action Jack Hatfield, still fuming over having had his popular tell-it-likeit-is radio show dropped after liberals branded him as an extremist, goes up against traitorous American billionaires and their government partners who have sold game-changing systems-disabling technology to the Chinese.

Savage, who has gotten into trouble himself for making inflammatory comments on his highly rated show, The Savage Nation, casts a wider net than he did in his best-selling first thriller, Abuse of Power (2011). In that book, Hatfield, a former war correspondent working as a freelance news producer, saved his hometown of San Francisco from a deadly conspiracy in which the British (who had banned him) were involved. This time, he’s out to expose plans for a secret war on America that will disarm the military and kill scores of innocents with a lethal toxin. He teams with Dover Griffith, a former journalist who now uses her investigative sixth sense as an officer at the Office of Naval Intelligence. Along with Maggie Yu, a grocer’s daughter with advanced skills in kung fu, they’re up against a wily and determined foe: Sammo Yang, a Chinese national passing as an attaché who has a serious vendetta against the U.S. and is prepared to do anything to carry it out. Savage, author of numerous nonfiction books, isn’t at all shy about using Hatfield to advance his self-image as a teller of truths liberals find too painful to digest. This book is not likely to draw much interest from the MSNBC crowd. But the story unfolds crisply and efficiently, if not with all that much suspense. And Savage portrays Hatfield’s circle of friends and supporters with affection.

Who says radio hosts are all talk? In Savage’s cool-tempered thriller, hero Jack Hatfield uncovers a Chinese plot and saves the nation.

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THE DAY IS DARK

Sigurdardóttir, Yrsa Dunne/Minotaur (384 pp.) $15.99 paperback | Feb. 26, 2013 978-1-250-02940-9 This dark thriller, set in Greenland, springs from the imagination of an Icelandic writer who mixes mystic native traditions with murder.

Thóra, a 40-something divorced attorney from Iceland, and her German boyfriend, Matthew, head to a small mining camp in Greenland to investigate the disappearance of three mining company employees. Thóra and Matthew represent the bank that underwrote the project and will have to pay out if the project fails, which is likely since the other workers have left the site and refuse to return. Thóra and Matthew’s job is to find out what happened to the missing woman and two men. Among those accompanying the duo on this trip are a physician, a company geologist, a computer specialist and Thóra’s own secretary, the annoying and petty Bella. When the group arrives after a long, miserable flight followed by a helicopter ride, they end up at |

“A relentlessly bleak exposé of human failings. ” from falling to earth

an abandoned camp with frozen pipes, little heat and fierce weather. The nearest village isn’t much better, with a native population that doesn’t trust outsiders and barely subsists by hunting and fishing. Soon, the mystery of what happened to the three missing workers heats up when they find digital images of strange things in blocks of ice and make other, even more unsettling discoveries at the site. Sigurdardóttir understands how to add plenty of creepiness and blends in healthy doses of dread and anticipation, launching the novel with a pair of video clips that will make readers think twice before turning the pages while alone at night. But even though the plot is nicely constructed, the writing often seems oddly formal and, in some places, even stilted, particularly in the dialogue, making it a slow and somewhat plodding read. Still, the author scores with interesting characters and a fascinating glimpse of a world far removed from the experiences of most Western readers.

The cast of intriguing characters and exotic setting don’t quite make up for the complicated and slow-moving plot in this murder mystery.

Administration. When she photographs Mary, Vera has no idea the image will take on a life of its own.

Walker’s tacked-on connection to the photograph seems a calculated attempt to add sexual intrigue to what is otherwise a disappointingly plodding account that sheds no new light on either the photographer or her subject.

FALLING TO EARTH

Southwood, Kate Europa Editions (272 pp.) $16.00 paperback | Mar. 5, 2013 978-1-60945-091-5 A tornado destroys a Midwestern town, and one family is left unscathed, only to find their troubles just beginning.

It’s a March afternoon, 1925, in the small town of Marah, Ill., too early for tornado season. So, when a giant twister sweeps across the area without warning, it takes a terrible toll of death and destruction. Most families lose at least one member and/or their homes. But the wife, mother and three children of Paul Graves, owner of the local lumberyard, take shelter in his providently built (and still rare in Marah) storm cellar, and Paul himself miraculously survives the storm, as do his business and employees. At first, Paul, wife Ma and mother Lavinia are part of the community rescue and salvage efforts, as well as tireless helpers during the grim aftermath: bodies are laid out on the front porch of their still-intact house, and the lumberyard builds scores of coffins. Despite the fact that the Graves family is humble, unassuming and the opposite of smug, it gradually becomes apparent that everyone else in town resents their good fortune. Even as the town is rebuilding, the Graves children are taunted in school, and Lavinia and Mae are shunned. Mae’s mental health begins to waver. She doesn’t understand why her husband and mother-in-law are resisting her timid suggestion that they move to California to join Paul’s former partner in Graves Lumber, brother John. When his closest friend warns Paul that the townsfolk will boycott his lumber business, he is still reluctant to heed Mae’s advice. By the time Paul finally realizes that he can’t reverse the senseless scapegoating, it is too late: His family’s sheer politeness and unwillingness to confront their detractors or one another will be their undoing. Unfortunately, all the conflict avoidance saps the novel of forward momentum, not to mention that essential ingredient of drama: the struggle against fate.

A relentlessly bleak exposé of human failings with no redemptive glimmer in sight.

MARY COIN

Silver, Marisa Blue Rider Press (336 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 7, 2013 978-0-399-16070-7 The fictionalized lives of photographer Dorothea Lange and the Native American farm worker behind her famous Depression-era portrait “Migrant Mother.”

While adhering closely to the facts of the real women’s lives, Silver (The God of War, 2008, etc.) renames them—Lange becomes Vera Dare; her subject, Florence Owens Thompson, becomes Mary Coin—and frames their stories within a wholly fictional conceit: Social historian Walker Dodge is grappling with his role as a divorced father when he begins researching the history of his family, successful California fruit growers, after the death of his uncommunicative father. Walker, who coincidentally teaches college students how to look at photographs, opens and closes the novel in 2011, but the real focus is on the two women. Mary grows up on an Oklahoma farm, raised by her tough but loving Cherokee mother after her alcoholic white father’s death. At 17, she marries Toby Coin, and they head to California where he works in sawmills and she has one baby after another. By 1929, a fire has burned down the mill and their home. After Toby dies, Mary picks fruit to support her children.

After an affair with a farm owner’s son, she has another baby that she is nursing near her broken-down car the day in 1936 when Vera Dare takes her picture. Vera, who still limps from the polio she suffered as a child, has spent the 1920s in San Francisco as a society photographer. Her financial security has collapsed by the early 1930s, along with her marriage to a flamboyant, womanizing painter. By the time she runs across Mary, Vera has farmed out her two sons to travel the countryside taking pictures to document rural poverty for FDR’s Resettlement |

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DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

care for her after the disaster, whom she left abruptly a year before. The middle section, narrated by Gabe, reveals that his own trauma began years before the terrorist attacks. A former Boston journalist, Gabe was preoccupied with a deadline when his 4-year-old son Ethan was hospitalized for meningitis. After Ethan’s death, Gabe’s marriage falls apart, and guilt-ridden, he gives up journalism to become a teacher in Bali, where he’s also embraced the lifestyle of the loner expat. Dining with a surfer friend one night, he hears an explosion and runs to the site of two nightspots which are in flames. There, he rescues Jamie, but at her urging, and even after she is injured by falling debris, both return to pull several more survivors out of the wreckage.

In the ensuing chaos, Gabe wangles prompt medical treatment for Jamie and cares for her at a friend’s beach cottage until she can get a flight out. Though Jamie has managed to thaw the iceberg that is his heart, he’s thrust back into isolation when Jamie leaves without explanation. A year later, Jamie is back, but Gabe refuses to be fooled twice. Echoing Bali’s difficult recovery from the cataclysm, the characters tread the difficult terrain of post-traumatic attachment. Although the seascapes and street life of Bali are appealingly presented, Sussman’s approach to her characters’ emotional lives is as restrained and muted as their disassociated response to their ordeal. Dramatic tension suffers as a result.

A respectful and earnest but far from edgy treatment of devastation’s aftermath. (Agent: Sally Wofford-Girand)

Stock, Jon Dunne/St. Martin’s (448 pp.) $25.99 | Mar. 26, 2013 978-0-312-64478-9 In the third installment of a superb series, renegade MI6 operative Daniel Marchant and his half brother, mostwanted terrorist Salim Dhar, again prove the most dangerous of odd couples.

In Stock’s previous novel, Games Traitors Play (2012), Marchant used his sibling influence to get Dhar to scale down an attack that did destroy an American F-22 Raptor but inflicted far less damage than it would have if a radioactive dirty bomb had been deployed as planned. Marchant’s actions saved the U.S. Defense Secretary, but the U.S. still wants him prosecuted for being with Dhar in the plane that launched the attack and not killing the terrorist when he had the chance.

With Dhar now on the loose and jihadist bombings he may or may not have something to do with rocking London, the power struggles between the CIA and MI6 and within those agencies have gotten nasty. Marchant’s CIA girlfriend has turned on him, and his mentor at MI6 has been pushed out as chief—before he can do anything about the Russian mole in position to take his place. The Americans are so desperate to lay their hands on Marchant, they torture a colleague of his. (The new era of torture is in full force: Dhar’s susceptibility to insect bites is exploited to gruesome effect; Marchant was waterboarded in 2010’s Dead Spy Running.) Abducted by Iranian collaborators of Dhar’s, Marchant must thwart an attack on the USS Truman in the Strait of Hormuz by his brother (whose Indian mother had a brief affair with their father, former MI6 head Stephen Marchant) and get Dhar to expose a newly activated terror cell in London.

Though some readers may be bothered by the novel’s anti-Americanisms and others will find Dhar too sympathetically drawn, such strokes are part of Stock’s deft contemporization of the spy genre.

BLACK IRISH

Talty, Stephan Ballantine (368 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-345-53806-2 Talty harnesses his nonfiction skills to craft a novel that’s centered on a feisty female cop in a history-rich Irish enclave in upstate New York.

Absalom Kearney, adopted daughter of legendary Buffalo police detective John Kearney, has returned home to care for her rapidly declining father. Abbie, as she’s known, worked as a police officer in Miami.

She’s been back for a year and has already established herself as the best homicide investigator in the BPD. When Abbie and her partner, “Z,” catch a missing persons’ case that turns out to be the tip of a serial killers’ iceberg, she gets a chance to prove how good she is. The victim, Jimmy Ryan, a perpetual nonachiever who was tortured and left dead in an abandoned church, was discovered with a toy plastic monkey near his body. When someone tries to enter the home Abbie shares with her dad and leaves a similar toy on the doorknob, the female cop realizes that she’s up against more than simply a clever killer. She tracks members of a secret Irish organization while chasing the murderer across her county and into neighboring Niagara Falls, all the time putting herself in harm’s way. Talty shows his chops when recounting the area’s Irish roots, but the first half of the story is sluggish. The relentless grimness of the setting, hopelessness of the local economy

THE PARADISE GUEST HOUSE

Sussman, Ellen Ballantine (256 pp.) $15.00 paperback | Mar. 26, 2013 978-0-345-52281-8

Two damaged people reach tentatively toward healing after the 2002 terrorist bombing in Bali.

Jamie, 32, an adventure travel guide has, against all warnings from friends and family, returned to Bali despite the fact that she is still traumatized by being caught up in the nightclub bombings a year before. (Miguel, her would-be fiance, died; she sustained injuries, including a facial scar.) Her main purpose: to find Gabe, a 40-something man who helped 28

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ABIDE WITH ME

and general ineptness of other police officers combine to create a lackluster atmosphere populated by characters that lack both depth and vitality. That in itself could be forgiven if Talty’s plot revealed brilliant detective work, but it doesn’t. Instead, Abbie comes across as unreasonable, dismissive of her co-workers, and abusive to both other cops and suspects alike. Readers can be forgiven if they find Talty’s story stretches credulity a bit, especially in the bloody second half.

This Buffalo-based novel turns out to be more notable for its area history, moody setting and occasional smart turn of phrase than for the thuggish heroine. (Agent: Scott Waxman)

Willett, Sabin Simon & Schuster (368 pp.) $16.00 paperback | Mar. 5, 2013 978-1-4516-6702-8 He’s a bad boy from the trailer park; she’s a princess in small-town Vermont; but their electric connection spans class and time. Sound familiar?

The second-best thing that happened to young Roy Murphy was being sent to juvenile detention after firing a gun to scare off the drug dealer preying on his mother. The best thing was his magical 10-week teenage affair with Emma Herrick, the beautiful blonde daughter of Hoosick Bridge’s first family. In his fourth novel, Willett (Present Value, 2003, etc.) updates the star-crossed love story of Wuthering Heights, while adding dashes of Homer, Jane Eyre and a Band of Brothers–style camaraderie. The looping narrative, full of foreboding and forewarning, is at its strongest during scenes of Murphy’s five-year military term in Afghanistan. Returning, he learns of Emma’s father’s financial disgrace and suicide and Emma’s engagement to nice, preppy lawyer George. Roy now devotes himself to making money, so successfully that two years later he can buy Emma’s family home, the Heights, which he shares with Emma’s half-demented mother and George’s boho sister Izzy, who is now Roy’s occasional lover, until a mysterious fire redraws the landscape.

Too much wuthering, too few heights in a story which describes eternal passion but doesn’t give it life or a satisfactory ending. (Agent: Stephanie Cabot)

THE DREAM MERCHANT

Waitzkin, Fred Dunne/St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $24.99 | Mar. 26, 2013 978-1-250-01136-7

Waitzkin (The Last Marlin, 2000, etc.) dissects the life of a man who sells himself and other things, sprinkling the narrative with yachts, trophy homes and a cameo by Lenny Bruce.

There’s a nameless narrator, a freelance writer. There’s Jim, the salesman, “tempting and delicious and a little dangerous.” Whether it’s network-marketing, Quonset huts for Canadian farmers or sluicing gold out of the Amazon basin, Jim hones in “on disappointment and avarice” to offer happiness and optimism. It’s 1983. On a Bimini fishing retreat, the two men meet in a seaside bar. Jim is “fast and powerful... and handsome with a worn-out toughness.” The men become friends. As Jim’s story unfolds, mirrored by a narrator about whom little is revealed, readers are immersed in a tale much like a bastard mating of Heart of Darkness and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Forced to support his mother after his father abandons the family, Jim grows up to make one fortune after another, first in pyramid schemes, then selling rugged and practical Quonset huts, and finally robbing gold from the primitive Amazon. He loses fortunes too, walking away from Marvin Gesler, the brains behind the Quonset operation, when he discovered Marvin was skimming a bit off the top. The Amazon saga powers Waitzkin’s novel, where in the garimpo, the gold camp he and his workers have hewed from the jungle, Jim learns both what greed can cost and what it can teach. There he displays a mixture of hubris and loyalty when his foreman Ribamar “a sentinel among fools,” defends the camp against marauders.

It’s scene and action, convoluted and complex, worthy of psychoanalysis. There are women—Jim’s beautiful wife, Ava, who becomes Lenny’s obsession; Phyllis, compliant second wife; Angela, Brazilian tribal beauty; and most of all, Mara, a decades younger, married Israeli woman, calculating, audacious, preposterous, presumptuous, sensual. Waitzkin offers a singular and haunting morality tale, sophisticated, literary and intelligent.

Thoroughly entertaining. Deeply imaginative. Highly recommended.

m ys t e r y A GOOD DEATH

Cox, Christopher R. Minotaur (304 pp.) $24.99 | Feb. 19, 2013 978-1-250-01231-9 A debut thriller that takes its reluctant Boston investigator deep into the heart of Bangkok, then deeper still.

After the cheating husband she’d asked ex-reporter Sebastian Damon to tail punches him out, insurance executive Dolores Moyle offers Sebastian a consolation prize of sorts: $7,500 plus expenses if he can prove that Linda Watts, the Laotian-born BankBoston vice president reported dead of an overdose in a tawdry Bangkok guesthouse, is still among the living. Dolores’ interest is in saving her firm half a million dollars; Sebastian’s interest is murkier, harder to pin down and |

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“Full of period charm.” from frankie’s letter

JOSH WHOEVER

constantly changing. He makes contact with his father’s old Army friend Sgt. Sam Honeyman, who knows every con artist and bar girl in town, and talks to Doug Brody, the fellow roomer who found Linda’s body, just a day before Brody also checks out.

Clearly, there’s something funny about the case, and Sebastian’s exchanges with Col. Nagaphit, the high-ranking police official who came all the way from Thonglor station to investigate, do nothing to dispel his suspicions. There’ll be intrigue aplenty in Bangkok before Sebastian’s discoveries there send him into the villages of Laos, pursuing a goal poles from his original quest.

Throughout it all, veteran journalist Cox’s first novel gradually and expertly turns up the heat, doling out the exotic details by careful teaspoons early on before plunging Sebastian into a world far from his comfort zone.

A debut thriller whose predominant tone, as its title suggests, is a profound sadness that no death, not even for an insurance company’s client, is a good death.

Guillebeau, Michael Five Star (284 pp.) $25.95 | Mar. 20, 2013 978-1-4328-2684-0

A con artist turns good Samaritan and pays the price.

When Joshua, semipermanently sloshed, ventures out of his habitual corner at the Western World Bar and takes a job as bank teller in the hopes of getting fired and cashing in on unemployment, he doesn’t anticipate that his pinpointing the perp in a bank robbery scam by the shoes he was wearing will lead mobster Sergei Romanov, the grateful but desperate bank owner, to offer him a new gig: find his kidnapped niece, Kiev. Willingly stepping into his new role as a private eye, Josh winds up in a cafe where he meets smart-mouthed babe Marci, a recently fired society-page journalist who thinks a tell-all book about rescuing the daughter of a Russian crime family will net her a bundle. The pair careens from one clue to another, wisecracks flying, guns misfiring, villains escalating, cars whiplashing, as they try to find Kiev before the Romanovs lose patience and kill them for inefficiency. With Kiev’s wacky brother Yuri along for the ride, they head for a mountaintop where two bozos and their victim may be hiding out. But is Kiev really a victim or just a poor little rich girl trying to find peace and harmony outside the family enclave? Many will die and a platoon of gray-shirted government enforcers will helicopter down before Josh can safely retreat to the Western World Bar. First-timer Guillebeau, whose software programs reside in the International Space Station, churns out wisecracks with machine-gun rapidity. His plot may be improbable, but when the laughs come this fast and funny, who really cares?

FRANKIE’S LETTER

Gordon-Smith, Dolores Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Jan. 1, 2013 978-0-7278-8217-2

A British doctor turned spy battles an unknown traitor.

Anthony Brooke would rather be helping the wounded on a World War I battlefield, but his excellent German makes him a natural for espionage in Kiel. When dying Irish-American reporter and spy Terence Cavanaugh gasps out a cryptic message—something about Star’s Anger, a spy in England and reading Frankie’s letter— Brooke, his cover blown, barely escapes. Back in England, his boss, Sir Charles Talbot, asks him to uncover the German spy in their midst, warning him that it might be an Englishman. By chance, he sees a familiar gentleman and a stunning woman on the street. When the woman mentions Star Anger, he tracks the pair down. The couple are publishing magnate Patrick Sherston and his French wife, Josette. By agreeing to give Sherston the story of his thrilling escape from Germany, Brooke wangles an invitation to Sherston’s estate, Starhanger(!), where he meets Sherston’s sister-in-law, a widow working for Ireland’s freedom, and her daughter Tara. Tara, an intelligent young woman, falls for Brooke, but he only has eyes for Josette. When Brooke discovers that a popular gossip column in one of Sherston’s magazines is called “Frankie’s Letter,” he realizes that he is on the right track. The column is full of coded messages giving the Germans priceless information. But no one knows who writes the column, which Sherston claims is sent to him anonymously.

Sir Charles knows the Germans are planning something big, but it’s up to Brooke to learn the truth before disaster strikes.

In a departure from her Jack Haldean mysteries (Trouble Brewing, 2012, etc.), Gordon-Smith presents an exciting spy thriller full of period charm.

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WHAT DARKNESS BRINGS

Harris, C.S. Obsidian (368 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-451-23927-3

Napoleon and Prinny, England’s Prince Regent, both lust after a 45-carat blue diamond.

After Daniel Eisler, a gem merchant with a fascination for the occult and a sideline in blackmail, is shot dead in his untidy house, magistrate Bertram Leigh-Jones catches Russell Yates, a homosexual profligate, standing over the deceased and whisks him off to Newgate to await trial. Sebastian St. Cyr, still devoted to his first love, Kat, now in a marriage of convenience with Yates, steps in to prove him innocent. This noble decision not only endangers his own pregnant wife, Hero, but pits him against her father, Lord Jarvis, half the cutthroats skulking |

WINTER BREAK

around Haymarket, and certain French agents Napoleon sent across the channel in pursuit of a diamond looted from the French crown jewels during the Revolution and thought to have been in Eisler’s possession. Was Eisler killed to retrieve the magnificent blue diamond? Was he slain by someone so in debt to him he had to let Eisler debauch his wife as partial repayment? Or did the Prince Regent himself target Eisler to reclaim the diamond that had been pawned by his loathed wife, Caroline? Jenny, a doxy who was hiding in a priest’s hole during Eisler’s demise, knows whodunit. But can Sebastian locate and save her from assassination and Yates from the gallows before it’s too late?

A lively foray into early-19th-century politics, treacheries and moral indiscretions, though fans of the series (When Maidens Mourn, 2012, etc.) will lament Hero’s relegation to a back seat this time around.

Jones, Merry Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Jan. 1, 2013 978-0-7278-8220-2 Pregnant Iraq War vet Harper Jennings (Behind the Walls, 2012, etc.) faces her most perilous adventure: an extended Christmas visit from her mother.

Hank Jennings, more or less recovered from his fall from the family roof (Summer Session, 2011), is off on a geological survey in South Texas. Concerned about his wife back in Ithaca, he’s arranged for her mother, Vivian, and her current boyfriend, Lou, to stay with her. It’s not a happy choice. Vivian’s alcoholism, narcissism and persistent attraction to losers have kept her at a distance from Harper, who bickers with her over everything, and Lou, who actually seems to be more on the ball than most of his predecessors, turns out to be hiding a dangerous secret. The biggest problem this Christmas, however, is the next-door neighbors. The fraternity house, which is supposed to be vacant for the holidays, is actually tenanted by Evan Lourd and his buddy Sty, who’ve stayed over without permission so that they can pick up other young men and murder them, taking their time over each victim in order to study his reactions and perfect their technique. As in the case of Leopold and Loeb, things don’t go as smoothly for Evan and Sty as they expect, and the complications increasingly involve Harper as witness, as potential victim and as avenger.

Jones works conscientiously to cross-pollinate the distant but lethal threats posed by Lou’s secret with the clear and present danger represented by the boys next door If you can swallow the coincidences behind the setup and the physically indomitable heroine, this nonstop tale pays off in spades.

DEADLY STAKES

Jance, J.A. Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $25.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-4516-2868-5 Agreeing to look into a murder case for an acquaintance becomes a very dangerous game for an Arizona crime expert.

Now that she’s finished managing her mother’s unsuccessful election campaign, former reporter Ali Reynolds (Left for Dead, 2012, etc.) is at loose ends, but not for long. Ali had met Lynn Martinson when they were both doing a television story on a cyberstalker.

She’s concerned that Lynn’s bad taste in men may have carried over to her new boyfriend, Chip Ralston, an Alzheimer’s expert who treated her father. When Chip’s gold-digging exwife is found stabbed to death in the desert, Lynn and Chip are arrested by an overzealous prosecutor, and Ali agrees to investigate for Lynn’s court-appointed attorney. Going one better than the police, who haven’t found out who reported the crime, Ali learns that it was A.J. Sanders, a frightened teen out in the desert looking for a hidden treasure his ex-convict father wrote him about after turning up on A.J.’s 16th birthday with a car and enough money to pay for gas and insurance. When James Sanders’ body is found near the crime scene, both the police, who are not happy with Ali’s investigation, and Ali herself are determined to establish a connection. With help from her boyfriend’s clever go-to computer expert, Ali finds some things the police have missed—perhaps enough to lead her into a deathtrap.

Prolific Jance melds elements of the thriller and police procedural with a touch of romance to carry readers swiftly to an unexpected conclusion.

CROWNER’S CRUSADE

Knight, Bernard Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Jan. 1, 2013 978-0-7278-8221-9

Knight fills in Sir John de Wolfe’s back story to show his rise from humble beginnings to the office of king’s coroner.

Sir John is a brave knight from Devon whose shrewish wife makes it preferable for him to be away from home for long periods of time. In 1192, the unsuccessful Third Crusade has left Richard the Lionheart trying to return home, accompanied by a small company of retainers that includes Sir John and his Cornish friend Gwyn. The group dwindles in strength as they fight their way through enemy territory until Richard is captured and held for ransom. The pair make their way home, where Sir John discovers that his business affairs have prospered but that |

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ONE MAN’S CASTLE

his area of England, which the King had unwisely given to his disloyal younger brother Prince John, is beset by lawlessness.

Sir John’s dislikable brother-in-law is a crony of the feckless prince, who is too busy plotting against the king to worry about the people. When Sir John and Gwyn come upon the body of a royal courier, they make it their business to hunt for the killer with the blessing of the king’s Chief Justiciar. They also start hunting down the outlaws who are making the roads unsafe for travelers, confident that once Richard is free, Sir John can expect to reap the benefits of his loyalty.

A prequel to Knight’s long string of historical mysteries detailing the life and times of the intrepid Sir John (Crowner Royal, 2009, etc.) that offers little mystery but much satisfaction for fans.

Major, J. Michael Five Star (324 pp.) $25.95 | Mar. 20, 2013 978-1-4328-2683-3

Killing is the best revenge.

Eight years ago, Walter Buczyno went out to rent a movie and returned to find a burglar raping his cancer-stricken wife, who lapsed into a coma and died while the perp, Franklin Edward Harris, got off with minimum time thanks to his lawyer’s excellent work. Raving against the justice system fails to placate Walter, who goes on to devise an intricate home security system that allows him to attack and kill a druggie intruder and, later, a pair of teens casing his place. But his glory day comes when Harris, released from prison, returns to off him, and he bludgeons him to death and throws his carcass into his basement crawl space with the others before heading off to tell his in-laws how he’s avenged dear Dottie’s death. Unfortunately for him, a frozen pipe bursts, his neighbor calls in a plumber, and his killing spree is discovered. New cop partners Riehle and Capparelli, who catch the case, think they’ve got a serial killer on their hands. Then Walter runs, winding up in a casino where luck lets him win at the tables but tosses him two curves. All demons, including those of Riehle and Capparelli, are exorcized by a fortuitous plot twist.

Major’s mystery debut features a mildly interesting plot idea scuttled by intemperate sermonizing and turgid prose.

BIRTHDAYS FOR THE DEAD

MacBride, Stuart Harper/HarperCollins (496 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Feb. 19, 2013 978-0-00-734420-8

Vengeance compels a Scottish detective to find a brutal serial killer and to protect a dark secret.

Constable Ash Henderson has received another anonymous birthday card addressed to his daughter Rebecca, who went missing five years ago shortly before her 13th birthday. Inside is a photo of his Rebecca, bound and gagged. Several other families receive the same annual torture, apparently sent by a killer who’s still at large. Ash had spread the myth, even among police colleagues, that Rebecca ran away from home.

Though the cards have continued to arrive on schedule, the killer the media has dubbed “The Birthday Boy” has not been active lately. So, when someone stumbles upon the remains of a young woman during a sewer repair, Henderson’s heart beats a little faster. Unfortunately, he is teamed with the chirpy and optimistic Dr. Alice McDonald, whose voice and manner affect him like the screech of chalk on a blackboard. After she convinces the family of the unearthed victim to go public, reinvigorating the case, pressure mounts on Henderson as police search for other bodies in the same location. More victims mean more families to interview in the twisty investigation. Could there be a worse time for a perv named Ethan Baxter to resurface and harass Henderson’s surviving daughter, Katie? Stopping him seems the only thing Henderson and ex-wife Michelle can agree on.

Henderson’s gritty first-person perspective adds authority and tension to a complex police procedural in which MacBride (Dark Blood, 2011, etc.) captures both the tumult and the telling details of a busy squad room.

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EASTER BUNNY MURDER

Meier, Leslie Kensington (304 pp.) $25.00 | Jan. 29, 2013 978-0-7582-2935-9

A holiday tradition turns lethal in small-town Maine.

The residents of Tinker’s Cove have always dressed their toddlers in their Sunday best for the annual Easter egg hunt at Vivian Van Vorst’s beautiful mansion. But this year, Pine Point is looking a bit seedy. The lawn is unkempt, no one is directing traffic, and VV is nowhere to be seen. Worst of all, her grandson, Van Vorst Duff, dressed in a bunny suit, drops dead at the gates of the estate before he can hide a single egg. Lucy Stone (Chocolate Covered Murder, 2011, etc.), ace reporter for the Tinker’s Cove Pennysaver, takes time off from covering the town council meeting to help her colleague Phyllis’ niece Elfrida cater Van’s funeral—giving her plenty of opportunity to snoop. She discovers that VV is being confined to her room and fed nothing but canned nutritional supplement while her granddaughter Vicky Allen and Vicky’s husband, Henry, aided by unscrupulous lawyer George Weatherby, sell off her priceless art treasures. When the Allens give |

BURDEN OF TRUTH

VV’s faithful butler Willis the sack, they have a fight on their hands. Thanks to local attorney Bob Goodman, the trio is brought to trial on charges of elder abuse. Reporters from all over the country choke the streets of Gilead, the county seat.

Famous defense attorney Howard Zuzick, representing the Allens, looks as if he might have some tricks up his sleeve. But surprise! Meier drops that plot and instead packs Lucy off on a mission to hunt down VV’s long-lost daughter for former librarian Miss Julia Tilley.

What starts off as Easter eggs ends up as one big, shapeless omelet in Lucy’s feckless 21st. (Agent: Meg Ruley)

Nolan, Terri Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (384 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Jan. 8, 2013 978-0-7387-3582-5 When a cop is rumored to have turned rogue before his death, the love of his life has to find the truth to clear his name.

Birdie Keane has been crazy for cop Matt Whelan since she was 15 and he was about twice that. She knows he feels the same way but is astonished when, on her 30th birthday, he finally makes it clear that he wants them to be together. In the past, the biggest obstacles were Linda, now his ex-wife, and the disapproval from their closely linked families. Now that he’s apparently gotten over them, Birdie immediately agrees to be with Matt even though it means breaking the heart of her steadfast boyfriend, George.

The next day, she receives a shocking phone call from the coroner: Matt’s dead body has been found. Birdie knows it must be murder even though the evidence points to suicide. Since the police won’t investigate a suicide, Birdie, consummate investigative journalist that she is, gets ready to find out the truth for herself. She suspects that what’s happened is related to a murder at Paige Street and a cop gone wrong. As she uncovers secrets, Birdie gets herself into enough trouble to require rescue efforts

by Deputy Detective Ron Hughes, who sees himself as a possible new man for Birdie. What she learns shocks her and makes her realize that Matt’s absence from her life may have been his way of saving her from the truth.

Nolan packs quite a twist in her debut, but Birdie’s tour through pedophilia and rampant homophobia will make this a tough tale for many readers.

SHOW ME THE MURDER

Mulford, Carolyn Five Star (328 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 15, 2013 978-1-4328-2688-8

A former CIA agent’s search for peace in her hometown is put on hold by a murder investigation.

Phoenix Smith was shot while undercover in Istanbul. Now, she’s returned to Missouri to stay with her next-door neighbor and lifelong friend Annalynn Keyser while cleaning her mother’s house before listing it. Annalynn’s husband, Sheriff Frederick “Boom” Keyser, has been found with a young Hispanic woman in a cheap motel in an apparent murder-suicide.

But Annalynn is certain that her husband would never have cheated on her, and after taking a closer look at the quickly closed case, Phoenix admits that the deaths could have been staged. With Annalynn and another high school friend, music teacher Connie Diamante, she starts digging for new information. Annalynn manages to get herself appointed temporary sheriff so that she can see all the files the police have refused to share with her. Though not exactly a hands-on sheriff, Boom had apparently been looking into a meth operation and an influx of workers, both legal and illegal, supported by a local church.

While she’s on a walk, Phoenix comes upon a Belgian Malinois that had been shot and left for dead. It turns out that the dog belonged to a missing DEA agent, upping the stakes and involving other agencies. Phoenix uses all her skills to help Annalynn and keep her and Connie alive in a high-risk investigation.

The first in Mulford’s planned series explores the unsettling rise of crime in rural areas and provides an amusing and touching look at the reunited gal pals.

STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN’S GRAVE

Rankin, Ian Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown (400 pp.) $25.99 | Jan. 15, 2013 978-0-316-22458-1 Five years after his last recorded case (Exit Music, 2008), John Rebus returns, and welcome.

Now a civilian trolling through cold cases for the about-to-be-dismantled Serious Crime Review Unit of the Lothian and Borders Police, retired DI John Rebus can still drink Scotland’s lochs dry, leave conversations in the middle to go out for a smoke, and raise insubordination to high art. When a call comes through from Nina Hazlitt insisting that there are similarities between two recent disappearances and the unsolved case of her daughter Sally, missing since New Year’s Eve 1999, Rebus hesitantly agrees that the A9 route through the Highlands, where the girls were last seen, may warrant a closer look. His decision lands |

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“It’s enough to make you nostalgic for the 2060s.” from calculated in death

CALCULATED IN DEATH

him under the baleful eyes of his former ally Siobhan Clarke and her boss and brings him once more to the attention of Malcolm Fox, his nemesis in Internal Affairs, who’d be only too happy to prove Rebus guilty of something, perhaps planned during his fortnightly pub meetings with pastured criminal kingpin Big Ger Cafferty. The A9 isn’t the only clue to surface. There’s also a photograph the girls sent to friends over the phone on the day they went missing. Trudging back and forth between Edinburgh and several North Scotland villages, Rebus and Siobhan disconcert various police forces, sidestep voracious media types, concentrate on a wrong suspect or two, and are ordered to step down. Rebus, of course, keeps at it, finally scaring a confession out of a perp by engineering one more abduction with the help of a ruthless teenager on track to be the next Cafferty.

Rankin deserves every award he’s been given: an Edgar, a Gold Dagger, a Diamond Dagger. Surely there’s another one waiting for Rebus’ thrilling return to the fold.

Robb, J.D. Putnam (416 pp.) $27.95 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-399-15882-7

Beautiful people meet unlovely numbers in Lt. Eve Dallas’ 36th case.

Even in 2060, upscale citizens still need accountants, but Marta Dickenson was evidently one accountant too many.

Someone hoping to make her death look like a mugging gone bad broke her neck, stripped off her coat and earrings, and left her at the bottom of a stairwell in an apartment building Bradley Whitestone and his two partners are rehabbing. But since the killer didn’t think to take Marta’s expensive footwear, Eve Dallas and her partner, Detective Delia Peabody, know from the first that this was no random robbery. The evidence points to one of the well-heeled clients Marta handled for the firm of Brewer, Kyle, and Martini. Maybe it was trust-fund dependent Candida Mobsley, who treated Marta’s audit the way most people would treat a pesky mosquito. Maybe it was Latisha Vance or Angie Carabelli of the decorating firm Your Space.

Or Carter Young-Sachs or Ty Biden, salt-and-pepper business partners. Or Sterling Alexander and the similarly mismatched Thomas Pope. And since whoever it was wouldn’t have wanted to take on the job personally, Dallas and Peabody must also search for the killer who was hired to do the dastardly deed and who doesn’t seem to be finished. The setup screams danger and suspense, but in between Dallas’ lightning inferences at the initial crime scene and the confrontation with an overconfident accomplice, the case is strictly routine, with no surprises likely for anyone familiar with Dallas’ best-selling series.

On the plus side, Dallas and her zillionaire husband, Roarke, continue to enjoy a great sex life, including one interlude only moments before the denouement. It’s enough to make you nostalgic for the 2060s.

SOME ENCHANTED MURDER

Reilly, Linda S. Five Star (276 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 15, 2013 978-1-4328-2681-9

A paralegal and her realtor aunt find sleuthing a dangerous hobby.

Apple Mariani is at an estate sale for Edgar Dwardene’s home, which she did the title search on and Aunt Tressa sold, when appraiser Lou Marshall, whom Tressa had dated, is found stabbed with one of the former owner’s antique daggers. Worried when the police chief puts Tressa high on his list of suspects, the duo decides to do a little detective work on their own. Their fears increase when their friend Lillian Bilodeau, an older woman who lives alone in a trailer, vanishes, leaving her beloved cat behind. The house at the center of the crime now belongs to Edgar’s nephew Blake, a former classmate of Apple’s who plans to use the proceeds to move to Manhattan, where his fiancee Celeste Frame can fulfill her dream of opening an organic bakery. Josh Baker, a young man who was renting a room in the house, claims rather improbably that Blake’s late uncle Edgar Dwardene had given him an antique car. Apple also has her doubts about Jack Darby, the handyman who built all the cabinets for the knife collection, who has developed a romantic interest in Tressa. Perhaps answers can be found in the journal of Edgar’s long-dead uncle Frederic, who relates a 60-year-old tale of obsessive love for a lady known as Dora. The pair’s ever more frantic search for the frail Lillian will put them in danger from a heartless killer.

Reilly’s debut uses her expertise in title searches to create a pleasing mystery with some interesting twists. First of a planned series.

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BEAR IS BROKEN

Smith, Lachlan Mysterious Press (272 pp.) $24.00 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-8021-2079-3 A newly minted attorney investigating his brother’s shooting ends up learning more about the victim than he’d ever wanted to know.

Hours after being sworn as a member of the California bar, Leo Maxwell is having lunch with his lawyer-brother Teddy when a stranger walks into the restaurant, fires a bullet into Teddy’s face and leaves. As Teddy hovers in a coma, Detective Anderson, who has no love for the man he tells Leo was as dirty as a lawyer can be in San Francisco, plans to arrest Ricky Santorez, Teddy’s most famous client, for the crime. Ricky has a grade-A alibi, since he’s spent |

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the past several years in San Quentin after killing two cops who burst into his place by mistake and caught him with a highly illegal weapon, but Anderson says that a snitch fingered him for hiring the job. Since the snitch is Lawrence Maxwell, Teddy and Leo’s father, who’s been locked up for a dozen years for killing his wife, Caroline, Leo takes an even more personal interest in the case. His search for other suspects leads him to the family of Keith Locke, a client Teddy was defending against the charge of murdering thrill-seeking sociologist professor Sam Marovich, whose corpse he was found trying to push through a window of the sex club where Keith worked. The suspects are familiar types—Keith’s imperious father, Gerald, his fiercely protective mother, Greta, his sexually alluring sister Christine—but newcomer Smith juggles them with supernal dexterity, and the final showdown is hair-raising.

Sensitive, ingenious and suspenseful. A series is promised and very welcome indeed. (Agent: Gail Hochman)

BLOODFIRE QUEST The Dark Legacy of Shannara Brooks, Terry Del Rey/Ballantine (368 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-345-52350-1

NURSING HOME NINJAS

Stevens, Al Five Star (274 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 15, 2013 978-1-4328-2694-9

A trio of nursing home residents, convinced that the rash of injuries among their cohort is no coincidence, decides to take matters into their own hands.

All is not well at the Orchard Hills Nursing Home. Someone has given Mrs. Arnold a bruised arm and Mr. Partlow a black eye. Arnie Peters’ Seeing eye dog, Bruno, is dead. So is newcomer Bill Whitley’s cat, Toby, for whom he’d paid the nursing home a $5000 premium. When they talk about these traumas, retired accountant Marvin Bradley, 87, and Mike Charles, 85, a man with a past he doesn’t talk about, agree that the most likely perp is maintenance man Leroy Parker, who’s very likely in league with Orchard Hills director Oliver Bates. Marvin, whose main qualification for the position of amateur sleuth is that he’s among the higher-functioning residents, enlists his grandson Freddie to hack into the Orchard Hills computer, discovers that Ollie Bates has plans to sell the place and use the land for an amusement park, and talks to elderly wife-killer Willie Hunt, who was beaten in prison when Leroy worked there. At length, he confronts Leroy, who meets his accusations with threats of violence.

And then resident Bonnie Meade is found dead shortly after her Debussy recital. None of this is remotely surprising. The one unexpected development leaves Freddie under arrest for murder and turns Marvin, Mike and their friend Carrie Fenway, a diabetic amputee, into advocates gathering evidence for Freddie’s innocence instead of Leroy’s guilt.

Stevens’ debut novel is short on circumstantial detail— the world outside Orchard Hills is as blank as Nancy Drew’s River Heights—and long on geezer charm. His geezers are charming enough, though less funny than they think they are. |

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The second book in Brooks’ ongoing Dark Legacy of Shannara epic-fantasy trilogy.

Brooks continues the adventure begun in his last book, 2012’s Wards of Faerie, set in his long-running Shannara fictional universe. In the last installment, the young Elven Druid Aphenglow Elessedil helped assemble a group—including her relative, the magicwielding Ard Rhys Khyber Elessedil, and Railing and Redden Ohmsford, who could summon the magical wishsong, among others—for a quest to find and recover the legendary missing Elfstones in order to keep them from those who would use them for evil purposes. Some of the questing party wound up outside of their own land and in the grim Forbidding, where, at the start of this book, they find themselves trapped; there they face dangerous creatures, including giant insects and Goblins. Meanwhile, those on the other side of the Forbidding wall, including an airship-piloting Aphenglow, her sister Arlingfant, Elven Hunter Cymrian and an injured Railing, face battles and challenges of their own. As with many fantasy trilogies, this second book is a bit heavy on exposition at times and seems to serve mostly as a buildup for more dramatic events in the third and final installment. That said, Brooks mixes things up here with several sharp battle scenes, for which he brings his distinct talent, giving a true grandeur to clashes involving terrifying creatures and powerful magic. Brooks’ fans, it also bears mentioning, will have a relatively short time to wait for a resolution to the story, as the final book of the trilogy, Witch Wraith, is currently set to be published in 2013.

A fine middle chapter to Brooks’ latest Shannara adventure.

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DEEP DOWN

a breath of fresh air—see Charlie Huston’s vampire-noir novels or Laurell K. Hamilton’s sexy paranormal detectives for examples. But dancing between two worlds can be a messy business, and it’s not for readers who are purists or faint of heart.

For the second book in a trilogy, Cole (Control Point, 2012, etc.) goes full gonzo on his carefully constructed world, where the military is augmented by myriad forms of magic. The universe he’s constructed continues to fascinate, but a sprawling narrative and thin characterizations hamper the experience. Cole frames the story through the eyes of Col. Alan Bookbinder, a novice to the operations of the Supernatural Operations Corps.

Unfortunately for him, Bookbinder’s latent magical abilities have started to reveal themselves and are unlike any powers that have been seen before. After a harsh orientation, Bookbinder is sent to the Forward Operating Base Frontier, deep in the heart of “The Source,” an uncontrolled magical realm in the Northeastern United States. To make his way, Bookbinder must join forces with the disgraced officer from the first book, Oscar Britton, to battle the witch Scylla, leading to barky orders like this: “Remember, she’s just one Sorcerer and we’re four. We do this by the numbers. I’ll run Suppression. Truelove and Downer should swamp her with elementals and zombies, and Therese will run defense.”

A propulsive, acronym-riddled fantasy. A long ramble in a Lord of the Rings vein decelerates the middle third, but the rest is highly entertaining and reads like an intense game of Dungeons & Dragons.

Coates, Deborah Tor (304 pp.) $24.99 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-7653-2900-4 The second entry of Coates’ promising paranormal thriller series, which centers on the homecoming of a former soldier who managed to beat death while serving in Afghanistan, will score high with readers who like tales that don’t fol-

low the mainstream.

Hallie has returned from war not quite the same person who left; after an explosion that killed her for seven minutes, she was brought back from the dead. Ever since then, the daughter of a South Dakota rancher has been able to see ghosts and other things that go bump in the night. In this second installment of a planned trilogy, family friend Pabby, who owns a nearby ranch, has asked Hallie to help her stave off the forces of death that have come to claim her. Pabby says it’s not her time, and she knows that because her mother, who had second sight, was able to tell her she’d live for many more years. Now, a pack of black dogs, the harbingers of death, are camped out on Pabby’s doorstep, and she’s barricaded herself in the ranch house. Hallie, her deputy sheriff boyfriend, Boyd, and one of the harbingers soon find themselves caught up in a dance with Death, a dead man named Hollowell, who is tied to Boyd’s past, and a bunch of missing people who’ve slipped between worlds. In Hallie, Coates has created a strong and believable female protagonist who, while she doesn’t exactly embrace her ability to see spooky things others cannot, possess a weary acceptance of her fate.

Coates’ writing is clean and solid, her plotting believable, even though the events are often otherworldly, and her voice strong and consistent. What makes her books more interesting than most is that she avoids the usual paranormal subjects and finds, instead of zombies and vampires, more fascinating and esoteric creatures upon which to balance the action.

A good, solid read that bubbles over into exciting at times, but readers who haven’t read her first volume (Wide Open, 2012) will be lost from the very first page.

TRINITY RISING

Cooper, Elspeth Tor (496 pp.) $25.99 | Feb. 19, 2013 978-0-7653-3166-3 Series: The Wild Hunt, 2 Follow-up to Songs of the Earth (2012), the author’s promising fantasy debut.

Cooper adopts multiple narratives as she first generously fills in and recaps the back story before moving forward. Naturally, a MacGuffin, known as the starseed, is involved. Malevolent renegade Guardian Savin plots with a mysterious dark power to destroy the Veil separating the world from the Hidden Kingdom. Gair, the previous book’s protagonist, despite an all but irresistible urge to challenge Savin and still grieving over the loss of his lover and soul mate, has little to do until the latter stages, when he accompanies wise old Guardian Alderan to the desert kingdoms. In the north, Drwyn has ambitions to become Chief of Chiefs of the nomad tribes and reclaim the territories lost to the Empire when they were defeated 1,000 years ago. To ensure Drwyn’s success, Speaker Ytha unleashes her magic to gain the assistance of the imprisoned death-goddess, Maegern.

Teia, Drwyn’s unwilling bed warmer, endures rape and beatings at his hands—but she does discover she has magic powers perhaps strong enough to defy Ytha. Emperor Theodegrance, having long abandoned the border fortresses, finds it impossible to

FORTRESS FRONTIER

Cole, Myke Ace/Berkley (368 pp.) $7.99 paperback | Jan. 29, 2013 978-0-425-25636-7 Series: Shadow Ops, 2 When a U.S. Army paper-pusher manifests his considerable power as a sorcerer of the highest degree, he is drafted into a war he may not be fully prepared to fight.

Genre mashups are a tricky business.

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“A thrilling ride.” from the arena man

AWAKENING

believe that the nomads once again pose a threat. And old, ailing Preceptor Ansel of the Eadorian Knights, anticipating terrible battles to come, seeks to broaden the intake of the novices, to the outrage of conservative factions within the church. This vast expansion in the story’s scope comes not without cost to focus and intensity, though Cooper maintains the quality of her characters and writing. Still, readers may find the switch to plotlines that invariably end in irresolute cliffhangers disconcerting and maybe disappointing.

Best advice to fans of Book 1: read this one, wait—and hope.

Herbert, Brian; Anderson, Kevin J. Tor (528 pp.) $27.99 | Mar. 26, 2013 978-0-7653-2270-8 Series: Hellhole, 2 Part two of the interstellar war/alien contact series that kicked off with Hellhole (2011).

Constellation ruler Diadem Michella Duchenet, terrified at the possibility of contamination by the alien Xayans with whom the rebellious colonists of the Deep Zone have formed a partnership, sends a huge battle fleet to annihilate them. Travel between star systems is accomplished via stringline, a sort of interstellar zip line, so Gen. Tiber Adolphus, the rebel leader on planet Hallholme, devises a plan to cut the stringline and isolate the loyalist fleet.

Furious when her fleet fails to report back, Michella orders a surprise attack via a different route and readies a second battle fleet under the son of Adolphus’ old nemesis, Commodore Percival Hallholme. Back on Hallholme, meanwhile, the humans who have accepted Xayan personalities, the shadow-Xayans, are developing their powers of telemancy, a sort of remote telekinesis, to defend themselves. The Xayans’ ultimate goal is to achieve racial transcendence. However, there’s something important they aren’t telling their human partners. At the heart of the Constellation on planet Sonjeera, Ishop Heer, Michella’s spy chief and hatchet man, pursues his private agenda of restoring his family to the nobility, unjustly—as he sees it—ejected 700 years ago. Still, other factions within the aristocracy feel it would be better to reach an accommodation with the rebels.

Unfortunately, the plotting owes more to convenience than verisimilitude. No matter who contributes the ideas, and there’s nothing here of arresting originality, the style is pure Anderson boilerplate, and it’s becoming harder and harder to recall the days when Herbert solo wrote such accomplished and amusing yarns as Sudanna, Sudanna.

A routine entry in a mediocre series, strictly for fans already hooked with volume one. (Agent: John Silbersack)

THE ARENA MAN

Englehart, Steve Tor (384 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 19, 2013 978-0-7653-2500-6

Max August is a magickal superhero.

Once upon a time, he was a soldier in the Vietnam conflict and later a DJ, but now, with the aid of magick and the bonus of immortality, Max crusades against the forces of evil.

Englehart’s (The Plain Man, 2011, etc.) fourth installment in the Max August series opens with comic-book intensity: Every page snaps the camera to a new location as the reader discovers what is happening to every major (and some minor) character simultaneously. With his apprentice and lover, Pam, at his side, Max seeks to discover what happened to the soul of his first wife, Val. They have been looking for her for two years, so she is hidden well. Of course, the reader knows that Vee, chanteuse and student of Cornelius Agrippa’s book (yes, the book is her master and mentor), has shed her old identity.

Meanwhile, the Necklace (a cabal comprised of links in a chain of corrupt magickal men and woman masquerading as leaders of society) has joined forces with the demonic Belia’al. They are conspiring to cause a natural catastrophe (employing U.S. Black Ops helicopters and magickal doorways) which will misdirect everyone’s attention from the real crime. Meanwhile, a diabola, Alexsandra, is posing as the lover of Lawrence Breckenridge, who is the leader (the Gemstone) of the Necklace—although she merely appears to be in his bed, having enough power to remotely manipulate matter—and gearing up for a battle of her own against Belia’al. And then Max shoves a dead body in the Collective Unconscious and assumes his identity in order to infiltrate the conspiracy. Meanwhile, Pam has fallen into the Subconscious and, with the help of mythical creatures, must find her way back to Max with the Key. Englehart’s latest is a thrilling ride that will appeal to readers of fantasy and conspiracy alike. (Agent: Henry Morrison)

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Moning, Karen Marie Delacorte (512 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 30, 2012 978-0-385-34440-1 When the ancient Fae of Irish legend break down the walls between their world and ours, a 14-year-old girl creates an odd alliance of monsters and men to save humanity and her beloved city of Dublin.

Dani “Mega” O’Malley isn’t your typical teenager, a fact most humans of the post-apocalyptic AWC (After the Wall Crash) world would be grateful for if they knew how dedicated she is to fighting the Dark Fae, the creatures who |

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destroyed their world and are taking over the human realm. And if the usual shadowy figures who roam the Earth aren’t enough, now some devilish creature is flash-freezing masses of people, leaving no clues as to why or how. Dani is only 14, but her beauty, mad survival and fighting skills, and zest for life have attracted the notice of some enigmatic, powerful alpha males. Dani is always skirting danger, but entering her teen years, her edgy lifestyle becomes even more complicated when her spiking hormones wreak havoc on her emotional equilibrium—really bad timing, since she needs her wits about her more than ever as she juggles an enigmatic nightclub owner, an infatuated half-blood Fae prince and her boy-genius best friend, while tracking down this new, dangerous villain who threatens to destroy what’s left of Dublin. Then there’s her ex–best friend, who wants to kill her, and the police chief who’s determined to take her most potent weapon, and a thousand other things that can slay a girl if she lets her guard down for even a second. The newest addition to the popular urban fantasy series Fever and the first of a planned trilogy with Dani O’Malley as the main character, this is a gripping story that combines excellent storytelling with believable characters that are rendered both superhuman and superbly human, with emotional fragility and psychological vulnerability, in an unstable world fraught with danger. Dani is young here, and we see the road being paved for increased emotional and sexual conflict later in the series.

Fast-paced, with nonstop action set in a fascinating urban fantasy world of Dublin under siege, this is a smart, bold and textured success.

keeps him from self-destruction. Later, thanks to royal intrigue, Conal and Seth are exiled to the mortal realm, where they find themselves in a grim late-16th-century Scotland. Although they attempt to live quietly, compassionate Conal practices minor healing arts, but even these attract the unwanted attention of the new priest—a fanatical witch-burner who, the brothers are intrigued to learn, may not even be human. And thus we reach that arresting opening. Set forth in gritty, visceral detail, along with a few anachronisms (“When do they plan to evolve?”

Seth wonders of the benighted Scots), curses, sex, violence and drinking, Seth grows in stature, understanding and empathy while learning to wield his rage as a weapon. One minor drawback: much of the deeper plotting takes place offstage.

As ferociously compelling as Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, with which it invites comparison. (Agent: Alexandra Devlin)

BLOOD ORANGES

Tierney, Kathleen ROC/Penguin (288 pp.) $16.00 paperback | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-451-46501-6 First of a wisecracking supernatural horror series, from an author who’s better known as Caitlín R. Kiernan (The Drowning Girl, 2012, etc.).

Narrator Siobhan Quinn—she insists, fiercely, on Quinn—a streetdwelling heroin addict, became a monster-slayer after killing a ghoul (though, as she finally admits, it was by accident). She has a steady supply of good dope and an apartment thanks to her benefactor, the mysterious fixer and manipulator she calls Mean Mr. B (he uses different names, all beginning with B, depending on circumstance and whim), since he considers it useful to have a monster-slayer in his debt. Having come to believe in her own notoriety, she goes werewolf hunting in Rhode Island. Instead of staying alert, however, Quinn shoots up and gets bitten by the werewolf—just as a vampire shows up!

When she regains consciousness, astonished to have survived either antagonist, let alone both, she finds she’s now a werewolf and a vampire. At least she’s no longer an addict, and when Mr. B shows his pleasure at her new condition, she begins to suspect she’s now somebody’s weapon—but whose, and aimed at what?

Clearly, she’d better find out—and fast. The New England setting is colorful and convincing, and Tierney populates it with a weird and splendid set of supernatural beings. Quinn isn’t the most reliable of narrators, though eventually she’ll stumble out with the truth; nor, as an investigator, does she prove the sharpest of wits, but she gets there. Add in the downbeat tone that somehow manages to be uplifting and the sort of gratuitously gory action that used to be called splatterpunk and readers are in for a memorably exhilarating and engaging experience.

Sly, sardonically nasty and amusingly clever.

FIREBRAND

Philip, Gillian Tor (368 pp.) $24.99 | Feb. 19, 2013 978-0-7653-3322-3 Series: Rebel Angels, 1 First in an otherworld fantasy trilogy, nominally for young adults, that first appeared in the U.K. in 2010, from the author of Opposite of Amber (2011, etc.).

In a dramatically arresting opening scene, we meet young Sidhe narrator Seth MacGregor as he aims a crossbow bolt at the head of his beloved older half brother Conal in order to save him the agony of being burned at the stake as a witch. How he reaches this point occupies the first half of the book. The realms of the immortal Sidhe and mortal humans are separated by a magical barrier, the Veil, created in the distant past by Sidhe witches, and time flows differently on either side. Seth and Conal are sons of Sidhe clan leader Griogair.

Conal’s mother, the witch Leonora, is Griogair’s bonded partner, while Seth’s is the cruel and vindictive Lilith, adviser to the Sidhe queen, Kate NicNiven, who nurses ambitions to destroy the Veil (but to what end?). At 8 years of age, Lilith sent Seth to live in his father’s dun, where he was ignored and belittled until Conal befriended him. Despite Conal’s reassuring presence, Seth burns with rage and resentment; only his loyalty to Conal 38

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nonfiction WALKING HOME A Poet’s Journey

These titles earned the Kirkus Star:

Armitage, Simon Liveright/Norton (224 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 25, 2013 978-0-87140-416-9

THE LAST LOVE OF GEORGE SAND by Evelyne Bloch-Dano......p. 41 THE FINISH by Mark Bowden........................................................p. 42 TOMS RIVER by Dan Fagin..............................................................p. 46

Award-winning poet Armitage (Poetry/Univ. of Sheffield; Seeing Stars, 2011, etc.) does what poets sometimes do: takes a walk, observes keenly and reports.

In the author’s case, the walk was more than a shuffle about the Lake District, but rather a long haul down the Pennine Way, more than 250 miles, and three weeks, from Scotland to his home in the Midlands. It also meant heavy weather, for “down” the Pennine Way means into the prevailing wind and rain, which, along this backbone of England, isn’t to be trifled with. Though he is occasionally wry and playful, the Way is a serious ramble, capable of swallowing up travelers in the boggy mists and moorlands. Armitage plays the troubadour, giving poetry readings each night for room and board and rounds of drinks (“it’s basically 256 miles of begging”). It comes as little surprise that the author studied geography, for he displays a sharp appreciation of place, both in its unique contours and its mystery—at one point, he mulls the possibility that “recollections can inhabit or cling to places…[s]o we shouldn’t be surprised when we feel the atmosphere of a battleground or graveyard.” Armitage is also adept at compressed expression, doling out small stories—about the people he walks with or the history of the landscape, the misery of midges or the terror of a deep fog high in the Uplands—that flash like sun on chrome.

A journey that pays dividends, both for poet-wanderer Armitage and for readers. (29 photographs)

THE WORLD IS MOVING AROUND ME by Dany Laferrière....... p. 52 EXPLODING THE PHONE by Phil Lapsley..................................... p. 52 FIVE MYTHS ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS by Ward Wilson...... p. 65

THE FINISH The Killing of Osama Bin Laden

Bowden, Mark Atlantic Monthly (403 pp.) $26.00 Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-8021-2034-2

STICKS AND STONES Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy

Bazelon, Emily Random House (400 pp.) $27.00 | CD $35.00 | Feb. 19, 2013 978-0-8129-9280-9 978-0-679-64400-2 e-book 978-0-385-536279-5 CD

A nuanced approach to the epidemic of bullying in American schools. |

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In 2009, Slate senior editor Bazelon began writing articles about cyberbullying. She shared in the growing concern about how social media can amplify the effects of bullying. After writing the first few articles, her focus shifted. While cyberbullying is “changing the nature of teenage bullying,” it is still “a new incarnation of an old phenomenon.” Probing further, the author realized that bullying is more complex than she originally thought. She explores the part normally played by aggression (when teens jockey for social position) and contrasts this to occasions when a disparity in power exists (and could signify bullying). Failure by both parents and schools to intervene in order to protect victims on the one hand, and overreaction on the other, can lead to bullying. In extreme situations, complex legal issues involving the responsibility of school authorities may arise (including potential criminal charges when violence occurs). Bazelon also considers the way that the prejudices of school personnel or the broader community against people who defy conventional gender roles can tacitly encourage victimization. The author uses three major case studies to exemplify issues. The first illustrates how overreaction by a mother when her daughter was mocked led to an escalating situation. In the second, school authorities tacitly countenanced the abuse of gay teens, who successfully sued for violation of their constitutional rights. Lastly, a tragic suicide involved a girl whose detractors were charged with murder, even though they had no direct involvement in her death. In the concluding section, Bazelon surveys promising new approaches to dealing with bullying, and the appendix includes fact sheets and a resource guide.

A convincing case against media hype and a premature rush to judgment.

elements called quarks. In the 1970s, experiments confirmed this, resulting in the “standard model,” a fairly good explanation of subatomic particles and their interactions. Everyone cheered the 2012 discovery of the Higgs particle, the last undiscovered element in standard model theory, but everyone agreed that the model needs work. It doesn’t incorporate gravity into particle interactions and says nothing about dark matter or the accelerating expansion of the universe revealed by dark energy.

Bernstein delves into some areas that will flummox beginners, but few will resist his accounts of the history, flamboyant geniuses (many of whom he knew personally), and basics of protons, neutrons and electrons that make up the familiar world. (11 halftones; 11 line illustrations; 3 tables)

UNDAUNTED The Real Story of America’s Servicewomen in Today’s Military Biank, Tanya NAL Caliber/Berkley (368 pp.) $26.95 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-451-23922-8

Biank (Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives, 2006) analyzes the increasingly important role played by women in the military.

The author, whose first book was developed into the popular TV series Army Wives, follows the military career of four women currently playing a vital role in today’s integrated armed forces: Brig. Gen. Angela Salinas, the Marine’s first Hispanic female general; 2nd Lt. Bergan Flannigan, a military policewoman in Afghanistan; Sgt. Amy Stokley, who drives recruits at Parris Island; and Maj. Candice O’Brien, who struggles through deployment to Afghanistan with a strained marriage and two children back at home. Biank shows forcefully how this commitment to service still runs up against sexism and prejudice.

Three of the four served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet nonsensically, by law, women are still prevented from deployment in combat. Women in the armed forces train to the same standards of excellence as their male colleagues who qualify for combat, and they must maintain the same levels of physical fitness and endurance. In Iraq, when Stokley was a driver, her truck came under attack, and one of her passengers died.

Flannigan lost her leg to a roadside booby trap when working to train the Afghan National Police. Biank follows the careers of the four individuals over time, as they advance in their chosen spheres. Salinas chose to continue to serve when she was told by a corporate headhunter that she “would not find what you have in the Marines here….You’re not going to find loyalty or camaraderie here like you’re used to.”

An eye-opening account of a military in transition.

A PALETTE OF PARTICLES

Bernstein, Jeremy Belknap/Harvard Univ. (236 pp.) $18.95 | Mar. 11, 2013 978-0-674-07251-0

Physicist and prolific author Bernstein (Quantum Leaps, 2009, etc.) applies his fine talents to this short but not simplified overview of subatomic particles.

Using an artist’s palette as an analogy, the author explains that the visible universe is made up of primary colors: familiar, long-lived particles detectable with simple instruments. J.J. Thomson discovered the electron in 1896 with a magnet and a cathode ray tube. Between 1911 and 1917, Ernest Rutherford’s men discovered the proton by aiming radium emissions at various targets. Other primaries include the neutron, the photon and the not-so-easily detectable neutrino. That was how matters stood in the 1930s when technical advances turned up a torrent of odd colors: unstable, short-lived particles. In the 1950s, physicists grumbled at a seemingly endless series of pions, mesons, sigmas and lambdas, but matters improved in 1964 when Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig theorized that these plus the proton and neutron consisted of fundamental 40

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“A love story probably suppressed by Sand’s resentful son, brought here to vivid life in the hands of her capable biographer.” from the last love of george sand

THE LAST LOVE OF GEORGE SAND A Literary Biography

Bloch-Dano, Evelyne Translated by Charette, Allison Arcade (320 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-1-61145-716-2

Delightful reconstruction of the deeply fulfilling, late-life romance of the French novelist with a devoted, younger engraver.

Obviously a labor of love, this work by the accomplished French biographer Bloch-Dano (Vegetables: A Biography, 2012, etc.) is highly entertaining and original. The author sees her job as reassembling the life of her subject from scattered pieces and “the ravages of time” and then, if all else fails, using her imagination to fill in the details much like a novelist. The result is a series of pointed assertions like light bulbs going off in her head, questions and switching to the present tense, all while sticking to the courageous, romantic spirit of her subject. George Sand was in her mid-40s when her son brought his engraver friend Alexandre Manceau to spend the holidays of 1849 at her beloved ancestral home, Nohant. A famous novelist and playwright, she was now bone-weary after the failures of the socialist revolution of 1848, into which she had thrown herself, and strapped by debts and squabbles with her headstrong daughter. Nohant had always served as her refuge, in between bruising stints in Paris and maternal love affairs with a series of “men-children.” BlochDano ably portrays Sand’s attraction to the 32-year-old engraver, a man of modest beginnings and much talent, highly intuitive, intelligent and devoted to Sand. Manceau not only took over the theatrical productions at Nohant, but also assumed the role of her secretary and copyist, living with her for 14 years while plying his commissions as a sought-after engraver. BlochDano’s portrait is poignant and beautifully researched.

A love story probably suppressed by Sand’s resentful son, brought here to vivid life in the hands of her capable biographer.

of the other, so much of their correspondence deals with the intricacies of translation (each was translating the other’s work).

Readers will find amusing, even touching, the attempts of each poet to explain linguistic nuances, both sometimes employing rough drawings to clarify. Evident throughout, too, is a profound mutual respect. There is also something quaint about the correspondence. Both men complain about their typewriters, about snail mail and about letters crossing—or arriving late.

The two men share political leanings, as well—evident in their mutual love for Joan Baez and their opposition to a procession of American presidents—especially Nixon, Ford and Reagan.

Another shared attitude is their disdain for critics. Lack of money for poets and poetry bothers both, and personal matters occupy more space as the years progress. Bly’s infidelity and divorce occasion a small crack in the relationship. They talk of other poets, as well. James Wright and Donald Hall come off well. May Swenson does not—though there is an amusing story about her literally popping Hall’s balloon. The burden of the correspondence shifts back and forth, one writing more than the other, and the letters gradually diminish in number as the

AIRMAIL The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas TranstrÖmer Bly, Robert; Tranströmer, Tomas Graywolf (476 pp.) $30.00 | Apr. 2, 2013 978-1-55597-639-2

Nearly 50 years of trans-Atlantic correspondence between two titans of contemporary poetry.

Bly (Talking into the Ear of a Donkey, 2011, etc.), the much-honored American poet, and Tranströmer (The Great Enigma, 2004, etc.), the Swedish 2011 Nobel Laureate, began corresponding in 1964. Both can write the language |

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“A superb storyteller, Bowden captures the tense drama accompanying the final months of the bin Laden hunt, even as he underscores the quiet, essential work of years.” from the finish

FORECAST What Extreme Weather Can Teach Us About Economics

digital age asserts itself. There’s playfulness, too. Bly signs some letters “Coleridge”—and “Your faithful blockhead.”

The love of language, poetry, family and friends, all on display in eloquent handwritten or typed letters redolent of a bygone era.

Buchanan, Mark Bloomsbury (272 pp.) $24.00 | Mar. 26, 2013 978-1-60819-851-1

THE FINISH The Killing of Osama Bin Laden

Former Nature and New Scientist editor Buchanan (The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You, 2007, etc.) offers his take on why economic theory breaks down when it comes to making predictions.

The author focuses on the increasingly evident failures of contemporary economic theory to offer either useful or timely predictions of future problems. He proceeds from the assumption that “merely predicting what is possible and likely can be hugely valuable, giving us warnings of specific dangers.” He compares the failures of the still-dominant school of economics—which failed to predict the 2008 crash—with weather forecasting. Prior to World War I, weather forecasting, as a predictive discipline, was in roughly the same shape that economics is in now. Modern predictive capabilities, including tornado and hurricane warnings, still stem from work done in the late 1950s. During the same time period, economics was going in the opposite direction, elaborating a theory based on self-stabilizing equilibrium. Buchanan summarizes the theory as it developed from the work of Kenneth Arrow and Gérard Debreu and shows how mechanisms associated with positive feedback were ignored. He provides some intriguing documentation on how Nobel-winning economists like Milton Friedman and others have resorted to verbal games to defend “unrealistic assumptions.” Buchanan also features other economists who reject empirical data that doesn’t fit their theoretical models or represent “the reverse attitude that rejects theories that do fit the data if they don’t fit the theoretical orthodoxy.”

The author’s stimulating deconstruction of contemporary economic theory parallels a treatment of major positive developments in physical sciences and pays due respect to the functions of government and law.

Bowden, Mark Atlantic Monthly (403 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 16, 2012 978-0-8021-2034-2

A best-selling author explains the 10-year effort to find, fix and finish the world’s most-wanted terrorist Bowden (Worm: The First Digital World War, 2011, etc.) devotes a taut chapter to the attack on Osama bin Laden, and he lavishly credits the courage and professionalism of the military men at the finish. But more than anything, he pays tribute and attention to “the effort and patience and will” of America’s intelligence network and counterterrorism professionals, to the often-overlooked virtues of a bureaucracy endlessly grinding away to connect the dots of information that would lead to the sheik’s lair. An effective opening chapter focuses on the day the Twin Towers fell and reminds us of the many then-obscure individuals who would rise to levels of immense power and responsibility during the long decade it took to kill bin Laden. Throughout those 10 years, through changes of administrations, the U.S. spent its time figuring out “exactly how to fight back” against an elusive, stateless enemy, employing tools old (on-the-ground human intelligence), new (supercomputers, drones) and improved (special ops) to eliminate al-Qaida’s mastermind. As he efficiently tracks America’s progress in this exquisitely difficult task, Bowden interleaves chapters depicting bin Laden’s increasing isolation and frustration in Pakistan. He also explodes a few myths surrounding the raid itself: the president’s “gutsy call” in fact had the near-unanimous support of his top advisers; there was no firefight at the compound; bin Laden was not in fact living in luxury, nor was he in effective control of his own organization; at least some of the information that led to his capture almost surely derived from torture or coercive interrogation.

A superb storyteller, Bowden captures the tense drama accompanying the final months of the bin Laden hunt, even as he underscores the quiet, essential work of years.

THE REAL JANE AUSTEN A Life in Small Things Byrne, Paula Harper/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $29.99 | Jan. 29, 2013 978-0-06-199909-3

For Austen obsessives, this latest study offers a few flashes of revelation amid long stretches of minutiae.

Byrne (Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead, 2010, etc.) describes her provocatively titled book as “something different and more experimental.” The experiment would seem to 42

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be the framing of the chapters. Rather than proceeding with a conventional, chronological biography, Byrne structures her narrative around small objects and incidents—totems that expand into larger issues concerning Austen’s experiences, attitudes and her beliefs. The result might be termed a biography of her novels (heavier on Mansfield Park than one might expect, lighter on Pride and Prejudice), showing how their development proceeded from the known facts of Austen’s life, some of which run counter to common perception. She was more worldly than many might suspect, rather than someone bound by the British countryside and her own imagination. Byrne reveals that the author was “a very well-travelled woman,” that she “very much enjoyed shopping,” that “Jane Austen and her family loved charades, puzzles, conundrums and riddles,” and that she was “a dedicated follower of fashion.” Perhaps the most illuminating area is in the never-married (but once-engaged) author’s attitude toward having a family, of how she enjoyed the company of children without idealizing or sentimentalizing them, but “seems to have had a phobia of childbirth.” Ultimately, all of this accumulation of detail doesn’t bring readers much closer to a woman the author admits was “a very private person” and “the most elusive of all writers with the exception of Shakespeare.”

Her exquisite novels remain the major source of fascination with Jane Austen.

COMANDANTE Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela

Carroll, Rory Penguin Press (320 pp.) $27.95 | Mar. 7, 2013 978-1-59420-457-9

A journalistic view of life in Venezuela under the Hugo Chávez regime.

“An eagle does not hunt flies,” Chávez once remarked by way of refusing to debate a challenger for the Venezuelan presidency. That, according to former Guardian Latin American bureau chief Carroll, is one of el presidente’s terser comments. Indeed, a constant of life in the South American nation is Chávez’s seemingly unbroken presence on TV, “every day for hours at a time, invariably live, with no script or teleprompter, mulling, musing, deciding, ordering.” Other leaders, particularly of a totalitarian bent, have made masterful use of the media, but few with Chávez’s devotion to the practice. Moreover, as if from the pages of Machiavelli, Chávez has layered himself in swaths of bureaucracy on the principle, it seems, that buying loyalty by way of jobs is a good way to win votes. Carroll is not an admirer, at least not an uncritical one, but he acknowledges Chávez’s well-tuned political skills; even if the elections are carefully engineered, Chávez is, after all, democratically elected.

On first coming into office, he also amended the constitution to extend human rights guarantees, protect the environment and give a host of benefits to working people—along, as it happens, with increasing the power of the president and the length of the term. When Chávez, a cross between Simón Bolívar and Fidel |

Castro, is brought up at all in the American media, it is usually as a bogeyman, so the author’s evenhanded view is welcome.

“Utopia is realizable,” insists Chávez. It may not have arrived yet in Venezuela, but it’s interesting to watch from afar.

Carroll provides a useful primer on a little-known regime.

ALMOST HOME A Brazilian American’s Reflections on Faith, Culture, and Immigration Cavalcanti, H.B. Univ. of Wisconsin (208 pp.) $29.95 paperback | $21.95 e-book Dec. 5, 2012 978-0-299-28894-5 978-0-299-28893-8 e-book

A Brazilian-born scholar’s study of Brazilian immigration to America through the lens of his experiences on the way to becoming a naturalized American citizen.

Cavalcanti (Sociology/James Madison Univ.; Voices from the Valley: Rural Ministry in the United Church of Christ, 2011, etc.) examines the “bifurcated lives” of Brazilian immigrants like himself “whose lives only make sense seen from the prism of both [Brazilian and American cultures].” He discusses how, though born in Recife and raised by “very Brazilian” parents, he became well-versed in the culture of the American South through Presbyterianism, the religion his family practiced and which was brought to northern Brazil by American missionaries in the 1800s. By the time he was a young man, Cavalcanti was a cultural hybrid who was as fond of bossa nova as he was the songs of Stephen Foster and Hoagy Carmichael. However, due to his exposure to Protestant ideals of self-determination and self-reliance, he found that he could not fully accept the military dictatorships that ruled Brazil or the Iberian patronage system that “coated all aspects” of Brazilian life. And so he became part of the Latin American migrant flow to the United States, a trend that exists because “the United States...offers opportunities that we cannot find in our own countries.” With a powerful blend of compassion and academic insight, the author discusses the emotional and financial costs of immigration while also celebrating the heightened awareness and personal freedom offered to individuals who stay the course in adopting a new country and culture. Cavalcanti then discusses his experiences alongside major theories of global migration and considers the social and economic factors that account for migratory trends, especially in the last 30 years.

A wise and humane book that illuminates the modern Brazilian immigrant experience with vigor and clarity.

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“A page-turning wake-up call.” from living and dying in brick city

AMERICAN UMPIRE

seemed to have it together; their children were “obedient, respectful, and, when told to be, quiet.” Concerned that American families place too much emphasis on the thoughts and feelings of the child rather than the adult, Crawford established a new paradigm in the household. She and her husband were the undisputed leaders, and they would no longer tolerate the temper tantrums, eye rolling, insults and other shenanigans that they had endured. No more jumping through hoops to ensure that their child’s spirits were safe; it was time to take charge and re-enter a world where adults made the laws, not the children.

Every time Crawford faltered, she only had to look to her French neighbors for guidance—though she drew the line at spanking, a punishment frequently used in France. The author also compares how the U.S. and French governments treat motherhood and parenting, with the French providing substantial financial support to families from birth to age 18. Presented with a touch of humor and spot-on descriptions of childhood (mis)behavior, the advice, which touches on such topics as breastfeeding and school participation, is practical and useful.

A refreshing approach to raising children.

Cobbs Hoffman, Elizabeth Harvard Univ. (448 pp.) $35.00 | Mar. 4, 2013 978-0-674-05547-6

A reasoned argument for the universally appealing power of American ideals over imperial might.

Cobbs Hoffman (Foreign Relations/ San Diego State Univ.; Broken Promises, 2011, etc.) makes a systematic case against American imperialism in favor of its assumption of the role of world arbitrator. The notion of empire had been devalued since the Peace of Westphalia brought an end to the Thirty Years’ War in 1643 and established for the first time a notion of sovereign states, equal and free from international control.

From this moment also flowed the preference for arbitration over violent dispute. The United States, as a nation of citizens truly able to “begin the world over again,” as Thomas Paine described, enshrined in its very founding the three trends of democratic capitalism already being legitimized the world over yet taken to new heights here: access, in terms of opportunity for all; arbitration, or the use of diplomacy and sanctions over violence; and transparency, as being proven more useful in economic and political dealings than secrecy. Moving chronologically, Cobbs Hoffman reveals how America first had to heal its own internal conflict between federal and state authority inherent in the Constitution, nicely handled by Alexander Hamilton yet challenged and ultimately resolved in a bitter Civil War, so that at last the country could “pioneer the new norms of international relations of which Enlightenment thinkers had long dreamed”—most notably, in the implementation of the doctrines by presidents Monroe, Wilson and Truman.

A useful, cogent examination of why, despite some folly and ill judgment, America continues to be the one country the world looks to when in crisis or need of support.

LIVING AND DYING IN BRICK CITY An E.R. Doctor Returns Home Davis, Sampson with Page, Lisa Frazier Spiegel & Grau (256 pp.) $25.00 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-4000-6994-1

An emergency-room doctor relates his experiences to the wider emergency of inadequate health care for inner-city residents in places like Newark, N.J., where he grew up and practiced medicine.

In two earlier books (The Bond: Three Young Men Learn to Forgive and Reconnect with their Fathers, 2007, etc.), Davis and two boyhood friends described their experiences growing up on the Newark streets—how, despite the odds, they overcame the violence and chaos of life in a ghetto environment and became medical practitioners. Here, Davis describes the serious health conditions of patients he treated in the emergency room who lacked any other medical care, a “too-often overlooked population.” Most poignant are the descriptions of his meetings with former street companions as they were wheeled into the emergency room, the victims of gunshot wounds, drug overdoses and the like. Most frustrating were the patients who faked ailments to legally acquire drugs for recreational purposes. The author cites the shocking statistic that in the U.S., deaths from overdoses of prescription painkillers exceed those from heroin and cocaine combined. Davis also faced high incidences of sexually transmitted diseases among black women, in his opinion spread because of unprotected sex. Tragically, his older sister, who had inspired him to become a doctor, died of AIDS. At the age of 27 (after his first year as a resident), Davis received an award for community service from Essence magazine.

A page-turning wake-up call.

FRENCH TWIST An American Mom’s Experiment in Parisian Parenting

Crawford, Catherine Ballantine (256 pp.) $16.00 paperback | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-345-53326-5 978-0-345-53598-6 e-book

Chronicle of the author’s French take on parenting.

“It’s clear to me,” writes Crawford, “that, even as we have tried harder than any of our ancestors to mentor, please, and encourage our kids, we have completely lost control of them, and in the process we’ve lost control of our own lives as well.”

With this thought in mind, the author strived to regain jurisdiction in her family, reaching out to her French friends, who 44

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MAKING HABITS, BREAKING HABITS Why We Do Things, Why We Don’t, and How to Make Any Change Stick

Dean, Jeremy Da Capo Lifelong/Perseus (256 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 1, 2013 978-0-7382-1598-3

Self-help on establishing new daily routines.

“The strange thing about habits,” writes PsyBlog creator Dean (How to Be Creative, 2011) “is that because we perform them unconsciously, we aren’t always aware exactly what they are.” Using research on the subconscious as well as personal stories, the author demonstrates how we perform habits under three circumstances: in vagueness, which frees our minds to think about other, more important decisions; without emotion, as the more routine the habit, the less emotionally attached we are to the act; and as a rut, as we tend to repeat the same actions in the same situations, perpetuating the habit. Placing ourselves in new situations (a new job, school or home, for instance) helps break patterns, whether reaching for that extra cookie or lighting a cigarette with a cup of morning coffee. Acknowledging that not all habits are bad for us—e.g., implementing an exercise program into our week or eating healthier foods—Dean shows that self-control, a change in environment, and rethinking how we talk to ourselves about our likes and dislikes leads to permanent changes in our routine practices. “The challenge is to work out which habits keep leading to dead-ends and which habits lead to interesting new experiences, happiness, and a sense of personal satisfaction,” he writes.

Making changes does take longer than we may expect— no 30-day, 30-pounds-lighter quick fix—but by following the guidelines laid out by Dean, readers have a decent chance at establishing fulfilling, new patterns.

WORDS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE Words and Phrases Coined or Popularized by America’s Presidents

Dickson, Paul Walker (208 pp.) $18.00 | Jan. 8, 2013 978-0-8027-4380-0

A prolific wordsmith dignifies our presidents’ unique rhetoric.

Dickson (Drunk: The Definitive Drinker’s Dictionary, 2009), a lexicographer and noted language expert, amusingly presents administrations who minted new ways of political expression; their range is variable, and corresponding histories evoke the best (and arguably the worst) of their time on Pennsylvania Avenue. Though Thomas Jefferson has become the darling linguist |

of the Oxford English Dictionary, it’s Theodore Roosevelt whom Dickson considers the grandest of the presidential neologists through a sequence of expressive offerings like “loose cannon,” “lunatic fringe,” “bully pulpit” and “muckraker.” Though not created by him, George W. Bush’s use of terminology like “axis of evil” was nonetheless effective, as was Ronald Reagan’s “Reaganomics.” Abraham Lincoln’s creative demonyms (“Michigander”) pale in comparison to the heft of the word “sockdolager” (“a decisive blow”), which was one of the last things heard before his assassination. A boon for history buffs, the author’s insightful section on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “new deal” and James Polk’s “manifest destiny” are prime reminders of many presidents’ dedication to their esteemed posts. Still, the JFK portmanteau word “moondoggle” laughingly mocked a wellintentioned space program, and George W. Bush’s “misunderestimate” malapropism went on to become prime media fodder.

A compendious, entertaining look at our nation’s leaders through words and turns of phrase.

GENERATION ROE Inside the Future of the ProChoice Movement

Erdreich, Sarah Seven Stories (288 pp.) $16.95 paperback | Mar. 26, 2013 978-1-60980-458-9

In her first book, pro-abortion rights activist Erdreich tries to bring some clarity and reason to the arguments around a woman’s right to choose in light of recent attempts to restrict that right.

A new generation of women takes Roe v. Wade for granted, but the author sees this cavalier attitude engendering a dangerous apathy and shortsightedness in terms of checking the encroachments on that landmark law that have been gradually gaining since the Hyde Amendment of 1976 (prohibiting federal funding for abortion).

In several sagaciously researched essays, Erdreich presents some of the voices of women who choose abortion and why. She examines the nuances that we need to hear, even if the reasons cause others to examine their own beliefs and biases; the lack of training in abortion by medical students and others in the medical profession, even though abortion has become one of the most common surgical procedures in America; the misrepresentation in film and media about women who choose abortion; and a litany of creeping restrictions on the law across the country. Since President Barack Obama’s election in 2008, harassment of and violence against abortion providers and clinics have risen, exemplified most tragically by the murder of Dr. George Tiller, a Wichita doctor shot by protestors in May 2009.

Despite the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances law of 1994, clinics and providers are continually threatened, scaring potential providers away and closing doors to needy women. Erdreich points to the enormous headway the LGBTQ rights movement has made in comparison to the taboos still surrounding women’s basic right to choice.

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“An award-winning science journalist exposes how corporate interests and corrupt politicians almost turned a quiet, suburban New Jersey beach community into a toxic wasteland.” from toms river

MY MOTHER’S WARS

the corporation “had produced about three billion pounds of dyes and plastics—along with perhaps forty billion gallons of wastewater and two hundred thousand drums of toxic waste,” which ultimately found its way into their drinking water. In 1986, after mounting pressure from environmentalists resulted in some remediation, Ciba-Geigy announced the plant’s imminent closure. They would be moving their operations to lowerwage areas with less regulation (in the U.S. and overseas to Asia).

Despite increased environmental awareness over the years, the union (supported by residents who feared the loss of the high wages paid by the corporation) was complicit in a coverup of the extent of the contamination. While some people relied on backyard wells, the major drinking-water supplier in the town also had a vested interest in the coverup, and tourism was an economic consideration. Eventually, truth prevailed as parents became concerned by the number of children afflicted with cancer, and activists were supported by the local newspaper. A 2001 legal settlement was “one of the largest payouts ever, in a toxic-exposure case.” Fagin weaves fascinating background material on epidemiology, statistical analysis and more into this hard-hitting chronicle.

A gripping environmental thriller.

Faderman, Lillian Beacon (264 pp.) $25.95 | $25.95 e-book | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-8070-5052-1 978-0-8070-5053-8 e-book Faderman (Naked in the Promised Land, 2004, etc.) reconstructs her mother’s experiences as a Jewish immigrant in 1930s New York.

The author has a knack for tracking down details that bring a story to life, and her descriptions of her mother Mary’s journey from a Latvian shtetl to the garment factories and Bronx apartment buildings of 1930s New York are vivid and memorable—as are her descriptions of the dangers faced by the relatives Mary left behind in Latvia. Unfortunately, the fascinating raw material falters under the weight of Faderman’s ponderous prose. The author’s overreliance on heavy-handed foreshadowing saps the narrative energy, and the constant invoking of her mother’s “destiny” feels contrived.

Faderman’s simultaneous resentment of the father who treated her mother badly and gratitude for the man who helped make her is a tension worth exploring; however, the author merely (and repetitiously) asserts it. Faderman’s scrupulousness in constructing a faithful historical narrative is admirable, but her writing is overheated and cliché-ridden: moments lead “inexorably” to “what she would pay for to her last rattling breath,” the spread of the “cancer” of fascism is “inexorable,” Americans turn “a blind eye and a deaf ear” to Hitler’s aggressions, etc.

Rich in source material and historical detail, the book suffers from the author’s pulpy prose style. Still, worth reading for those interested in the lives of Jewish immigrants in New York and the spread of fascism in Eastern Europe in the 1930s.

PIECES OF LIGHT How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts

Fernyhough, Charles Harper (320 pp.) $26.99 | Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-06-223789-7

Fernyhough (A Thousand Days of Wonder: A Scientist’s Chronicle of His Daughter’s Developing Mind, 2010, etc.) takes a multidisciplinary approach to explaining memory.

Using autobiographical accounts and memories elicited from his daughter and other children, the author sets out to make “the new, reconstructive account of memory” available to nonpsychologists. Fernyhough reports on experiments like the University of Ontario’s studies comparing levels of complexity of verbal processing with simultaneous neuroimaging of areas of the brain showing how new and older activations are integrated.

Neuropsychologists are attempting to distinguish false memories from true and have begun to identify brain regions that are involved, and parallel efforts are underway to treat memory disorders, such as amnesia. Fernyhough references case studies from the criminal justice system that have shown the fallibility of eyewitness accounts and demonstrated the suggestibility of children whose apparently “recovered” memories of sexual abuse were proven to be false. It is now widely accepted that memories are not stored in the brain but re-created in the present each time they are called upon. They are not “mental DVDs stored away in some library of the mind,” writes the author, but are shaped by subsequent events and the emotions they evoked

TOMS RIVER A Story of Science and Salvation Fagin, Dan Bantam (560 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-553-80653-3 978-0-345-53861-1 e-book

An award-winning science journalist exposes how corporate interests and corrupt politicians almost turned a quiet, suburban New Jersey beach community into a toxic wasteland.

Former Newsday reporter Fagin (Journalism/New York Univ.; co-author: Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law and Endangers Your Health, 1999) reveals the complex motives that blinded residents of Toms River to the consequences of the practices of the town’s major employer, Ciba-Geigy, a chemical company based in Switzerland that produced dyes from coal tar. Since the early 1950s, 46

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to become autobiographical memories. Fernyhough illustrates this concept with remembered experiences taken from his own childhood and literary references from authors such as Marcel Proust, A.S. Byatt and others, which highlight the difference between memory and imagination.

Will be intriguing for readers interested in the borderlands where memoir, fiction and science overlap but is likely to frustrate readers unfamiliar with the byways of British life.

THE ORG The Underlying Logic of the Office Fisman, Ray and Sullivan, Tim Twelve (320 pp.) $26.99 | $11.99 e-book | Jan. 8, 2013 978-0-446-57159-3 978-1-4555-1753-4 e-book

An investigation of organizations.

A casual read of the news will frequently yield a story or two on a corporation or organization rotting from the inside—malfeasance, bungling product delivery, CEOs taking larger bonuses while pleading for more tax breaks, etc. Many of us are just ordinary Joes who don’t understand how office culture can be so toxic; simultaneously, we’re often cogs in the machine. Fisman (Social Enterprise/Columbia Business School) and Harvard Business Review Press editorial director Sullivan take this study of “the underlying logic of the office” beyond the common communication breakdown between management and labor, examining the balance of incentive-based rewards with fostering intrinsic motivations. Hewlett-Packard, they find, started with an emphasis on the latter and moved, as the company grew, toward the former. The authors explore a wide variety of organizations, deconstructing, reconstructing and questioning the different structures and their efficacy in fitting together to achieve the larger objective. Without the strict hierarchy provided by the Catholic Church, write the authors, the United Methodist Church is both freed and burdened with a greater flexibility at the local level to meet the tenets in their mission statement.

This particular section of the book asks a question directly that is approached less specifically in other places: Does the idea of using incentive pay for pastors increase the number of souls those pastors might save?

A mostly intriguing study of business and other organizations and the “trade-offs that [they] face as they grow and evolve.”

HOPPER A Journey into the American Dream Folsom, Tom It Books/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $26.99 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-06-220694-7

A hip biography of American actor, photographer and pop-art collector Dennis Hopper (1936–2010).

Folsom (The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld, 2009, etc.) considers Hopper as an energetic acolyte of James Dean who cultivated a renegade persona through drug abuse, sexual wildness, violence and confrontations with directors as well as other studio figures over embracing method acting when it was regarded with skepticism. Spanning Hopper’s beginnings in theater to a part in Rebel Without a Cause, his ambitious project in Peru, The Last Movie and a career resurgence later in life, the author emphasizes how the actor’s talent was sometimes overshadowed by his reputation—to the extent that the actor once agreed in a 60 Minutes interview that his work could be regarded as a failure with moments of brilliance. Folsom’s tendency toward extended metaphors occasionally hinders the narrative—e.g., of Hollywood legends, he writes, “Up in the firmament, outside his [Peter Fonda’s] window, Brando, Dean, and Clift twinkled in the cosmos. Marlon’s comet shone brightest. It hooked around the sun, didn’t get sucked in, and then seemed to orbit around it. A celestial navigator, Fonda watched it come, exit, it was really incredible. The tail of the comet sent showers and meteors fizzing down through the atmosphere.”

There are also several other instances of purple prose, but Folsom provides frank anecdotes regarding Hopper’s fellow actors, such as Natalie Wood.

Occasionally overwritten, but a rich portrayal of an unconventional, free-wheeling thinker whose checkered experiences shock and beguile on the page.

FREE TO LEARN Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More SelfReliant, and Better Prepared for Life

Gray, Peter Basic (288 pp.) $27.99 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-465-02599-2

Psychology Today blogger Gray (Psychology/Boston Coll.) argues the need for radical reforms in our educational system.

Describing himself as “an evolutionary developmental psychologist,” he rests his theory on the claim that hunter-gatherer societies offer an educational model for today. Many will agree |

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“A British historian nimbly makes sense and relevance out of the confoundingly entangled dynasties of the Yorks and Tudors.” from blood sisters

with his contention that the lives of today’s children are far too scripted, with excessive homework and play dates substituting for the free-wheeling play of decades past. “Free play is nature’s means of teaching children that they are not helpless,” writes Gray. His conclusion that formal schooling is an infringement on children’s freedom and should be abolished is more controversial—even more so since he grounds it in a mythical golden age preceding the invention of agriculture. The author makes the dubious suggestion that his assertions represent “compelling evidence that children’s natural, hunter-gatherer ways of learning are sufficient for education in our culture, if we provide conditions that are equivalent.” Switching to modern times, Gray indicts formal education and compares schools to prisons. Charging that public education denies children their liberty “without just cause and due process,” he contends that this interferes with their development of personal responsibility and robs them of the motivation to learn. The hierarchical nature of schools fosters “shame, hubris, cynicism, and cheating,” as well as bullying. Gray’s observation that mixing age groups can foster the educational process is intriguing, but his advocacy of radically transforming the role of teacher to that of a consultant is more controversial.

The author’s suggestion of the $600 billion savings to be had by eliminating public education suggests a libertarian political agenda, but it should make his proposals attractive, if not entirely convincing.

in familiar ways—from initial outrage to healing, wariness to acceptance, and an adolescent’s tumultuous beginnings to high school graduation and acceptance to college. Though descriptions of emotions occasionally step into cliché, Greenlaw is at her finest when drawing parallels between life at sea and her new role as a mother.

A competent work intended to encourage others in similar situations, but will appeal most to fans of Greenlaw’s previous Isle au Haut installment, The Lobster Chronicles.

BLOOD SISTERS The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses Gristwood, Sarah Basic (432 pp.) $28.99 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-465-01831-4

A labyrinthine journey through the York-Lancaster feud of 15th-century England from the point of view of its queens.

Biographer Gristwood (The Girl in the Mirror, 2012, etc.) pursues no fewer than seven remarkable women of note between the wedding of Marguerite of Anjou to Henry VI in 1445 and the death of Elizabeth of York, queen to the re-established Henry Tudor, in 1503. The War of the Roses was more accurately known as the Cousins’ War since, of course, everybody was related, descended from Edward III in some fashion, and convinced they had an equal shot at the crown. Gristwood allows several great matriarchs to take center stage between the vying for power by Lancastrians and Yorkists: Marguerite of Anjou, the strong, French-born queen who had to endure a humiliating return to France after her spineless husband was muscled out of the throne after the Yorkist victory at Towton; Cecily Neville, who would lose her husband but see her brilliant son prevail as Edward IV; and Margaret Beaufort, who jealously, devotedly schemed to dethrone Richard III in favor of her son, Henry Tudor. Moreover, there is the tremendously moving love story between Edward IV and commoner Elizabeth Woodville, the mother of the two subsequent young doomed princes in the tower. As Gristwood amply proves in this shrewd, rewarding study, alliances and ambitions involved women as much as men. The author also includes a glossary of select names and a “simplified family tree,” both of which will be particularly helpful for American readers.

A British historian nimbly makes sense and relevance out of the confoundingly entangled dynasties of the Yorks and Tudors.

LIFESAVING LESSONS Notes from an Accidental Mother

Greenlaw, Linda Viking (272 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 21, 2012 978-0-670-02517-6

America’s only female swordfishboat captain returns with a straightforward account of the challenges she faced in becoming the legal guardian of a sexually abused teenager and in balancing unexpected motherhood with her reclusive lifestyle on a tiny island off the coast of Maine.

A resident of Isle au Haut, whose population at the time numbered less than 50 in the off-season, Greenlaw (Seaworthy, 2010, etc.) and her community were disturbed to realize they did not live in a “[p]ristine” place. Upon learning that a pedophile resided among them, they rallied to aid Mariah, a 15-yearold who had moved to the island with her stepfather’s alcoholic brother, “Uncle” Ken. Greenlaw charts the course of her earlier choice to live a childless life through events that led to Mariah’s rescue, Ken’s arrest, trial and conviction, and its aftermath. The author’s no-nonsense approach to daily life led to honest admissions of selfishness and her desire for solitude, but she gradually warmed to the realization that guardianship involved more than providing material needs and security. Secondary themes of sisterhood and of developing female friendships later in life add depth to a work that otherwise explores a sensitive topic 48

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OVERHEATED How Climate Change Will Cause Floods, Famine, War, and Disease

Guzman, Andrew T. Oxford Univ. (272 pp.) $29.95 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-19-993387-7

Dire and detailed description of what tragedies are in the making for humanity as global warming continues its seemingly inexorable rise.

Guzman (Law/Univ. of California; How International Law Works, 2010, etc.) writes that climate change is “perhaps the greatest international challenge of this century and beyond,” yet “people have not come to accept how serious it is.” By focusing on the human cost of global warming, his hope is that people will act. What will happen, Guzman asks, if the Earth’s temperature rises—and this is a conservative estimate—a mere 2 degrees centigrade? Plenty, as it turns out, and none of it good. A series of well-researched and clearly written chapters outlines the consequences. Rising seas will cause some nations, such as the Maldives, to simply sink. In other poor, low-lying nations, flooding and increasingly violent storms and the subsequent social disruption may create untold millions of “climate refugees”—20 million in Bangladesh alone. As glaciers melt, ancient water-management systems will be disrupted as new patterns of flood and drought emerge. Fresh water will become scarcer, and perhaps more than 1 billion people will have access to far less water than they do now. As climate refugees huddle together in inevitably crowded camps, new diseases will emerge with fewer resources to treat and prevent them. The social and political costs will be enormous; governments will be overwhelmed by the failure of basic systems, from food production to sanitation. Those areas of the world—say, the Middle East or Pakistan and India—already dangerously enmeshed in enmity may explode into violence as the battle for resources, especially water, intensifies. Though exact scenarios are difficult to predict, such dangers, notes Guzman, are real.

But global warming is not unmanageable if we can simply muster the political will to enact and enforce regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

A disturbing yet realistic examinations of the consequences of a warmer world.

THE FAITHFUL EXECUTIONER Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century

Harrington, Joel F. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) $27.00 | Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-8090-4992-9

A sympathetic revelation of the surprisingly poignant inner life of a pious Lutheran executioner. |

A historian of early modern German history at Vanderbilt, Harrington (The Unwanted Child: Foundlings, Orphans, and Juvenile Criminals in Early Modern Germany, 2009) has delved at length into a personal journal kept over a remarkable 45-year career by the executioner of Nuremberg, Frantz Schmidt; the journal reveals that he was keeping it for very public reasons.

Schmidt began the journal at age 19 in 1573, when he was just an apprentice to his father, the executioner of Bamberg. After a stint as a journeyman, Schmidt attained the status of master by age 24 and procured a plum job in the thriving industry town of Nuremberg, where he plied his trade with exemplary dignity for the next 40 years, recording some 394 deaths and countless acts of flogging and torture. Some of the entries offer more detail than others, but overall, Schmidt shows he was a willing executioner, even a passionate one, in terms of his righteous sense of administering due punishment in the face of senseless, random injustice. He was also an abstemious, disciplined professional who brought rigorous standards to a trade notorious for its violence and instability. Moreover, Harrington reveals some subtle yet telling details in the journal, attesting to the scholar’s expertise in German and his doggedness in going back to Schmidt’s original manuscript rather than relying on later, edited versions. Despite its authorial diffidence, “an evolving self-identity became ever more pronounced,” as Schmidt shows his obsession with social standing and a sense of righting his own familial injustice. What he wanted was what everyone strove for: a better life for his children. A whole teeming world of Reformation Germany comes alive in this well-handled historical reconstruction.

An accessible, even inviting portrait of the professional killer, despite the gruesome detail.

THE INTERNATIONAL BANK OF BOB Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time

Harris, Bob Walker (384 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-8027-7751-5

The story of a well-meaning American journalist who travels the poorest regions of the world in search of the human stories behind microfinance loans.

Having landed a plum assignment in 2008 for Forbes Traveler that entailed staying at the world’s most expensive hotels in Dubai and Singapore, among other places, Harris (Who Hates Whom, 2007, etc.) returned deeply moved by the plight of the migrant workers he witnessed offstage, who had toiled to build the pleasure palaces of the rich. Resolved to do something to help alleviate the world’s enormous disparity of wealth, the author was intrigued by microfinance, the lending of small amounts to the working poor in the developing world, first formulated by Nobel winners Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank. Unlike charity, microfinance institutions like Kiva.org actually motivate people kirkus.com

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“Amuses, informs and inspires—then, finally, rips open the heart.” from the book of my lives

A LONG DAY AT THE END OF THE WORLD

to change their lives, leading to better education, investment in capital equipment and acquisition of real estate. After hearing a talk by soft-spoken Kiva president Premal Shah, Harris sunk his $20,000 Forbes pay into 5,000-plus Kiva loans in approximately $25 increments that went to small, family enterprises from Peru to Cambodia. He then followed up by actually visiting clients and finding out how the money was spent and whether it did any good in helping bring people out of entrenched poverty. Harris embarked on an extraordinary journey, braving dengue fever, among other hazards. He visited a husband-and-wife furnituremaking team in war-torn Sarajevo whose business sends their kids to school; a Rwandan single mother who used her loans to set up a thriving convenience store in her town; and the proprietor of an early-education center on Chicago’s North Side.

In an engaging, fully transparent, upbeat narrative, with chockablock footnotes and resources, Harris presents the MFI case very persuasively.

Hendricks, Brent Farrar, Straus and Giroux (208 pp.) $14.00 paperback | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-374-14686-3

A memoir in the form of a strange pilgrimage, filled with apocalyptic images, through the present-day South to the place in Georgia where hundreds of corpses were found rotting outside a crematory.

The “cremains” sent out by Tri-State Crematory to bereaved families were, it seems, largely ground concrete. Poet Hendricks (Thaumatrope, 2007, etc.), whose father had died more than a decade earlier, was on a quest to find out whether his father’s body was one of those discarded corpses. In 1997, his body had been disinterred from its Georgia grave since his widow wanted him cremated so that his ashes could later be dispersed with hers in the mountains. Five years after the disinterment, Hendricks sought to discover what became of his father’s body and to understand how this mass desecration could have occurred.

His journey through the South was nightmarish: religious bigotry, environmental ruin, slavery and its aftermath of racial prejudice, a history of Native American genocide dating back to the days of Hernando de Soto’s exploitation. What was going on inside Hendrick’s head was no picnic either. He ruminates on his unhappy childhood with a father he found hard to love and his growing up in the South, where he did not fit in. At journey’s end, the author does see confirmation that his father’s body has been identified. However, as for why the crematory owner had scattered corpses through the woods and pond behind his facility, no answer is ever forthcoming.

A tough journey. For Hendricks, the discovery that counts is that the conjuring of his father’s presence during his bleak and lonely pilgrimage has brought him to realize that perhaps he can love him again after all.

THE BOOK OF MY LIVES

Hemon, Aleksandar Farrar, Straus and Giroux (224 pp.) $25.00 | Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-374-11573-9 An acclaimed novelist—winner of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant and finalist for the National Book Award (The Lazarus Project, 2008, etc.)—returns with an affecting memoir about his youth in Sarajevo and his escape and adjustment to the West.

Hemon begins with the birth of his baby sister. He evokes his boyhood jealousy and confusion with honesty and clarity, recalling how he once nearly murdered the infant. When war in the Balkans erupted (once again) in the 1990s, his family eventually fled. His father went to Canada with his wife and the author’s sister in 1993; Hemon had been eking out a living as a journalist in Sarajevo, a city he loved. He maintains an appealing, self-deprecating voice throughout these early chapters, readily recognizing his own delusions and youthful arrogance. He got a chance to visit Chicago for a month in 1992 and didn’t return. The second half of the memoir charts his early struggles in the city and his passions for soccer and chess, passions he was able to release once he found like-minded groups of others. Always a voracious reader (and aficionado of American popular culture), Hemon learned English, taught ESL for a while, then began writing in English, as well. He writes forthrightly about the failure of his first marriage: Something so right, he thought, quickly declined into something bad (shouting matches). But later he met and fell in love with his current wife, who, at the time, was editing a collection to which he was contributing. Hemon’s technique is not conventional—this is no linear boyhood-to-manhood narrative. The chapters, in fact, could in many ways stand alone. But their cumulative emotional power— accelerated by a wrenching final section about the grievous illness of his younger daughter—eventually all but overwhelms.

Amuses, informs and inspires—then, finally, rips open the heart.

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ON LOOKING Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes

Horowitz, Alexandra Scribner (320 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 8, 2013 978-1-4391-9125-5

Round and round the blocks of New York City, Horowitz (Psychology, Animal Behavior, and Canine Cognition/Barnard Coll.; Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know, 2010) takes readers on multiple walks, showing us what we fail to spot when we don’t pay attention.

Her young son sees green triangles, trucks and his own shadow, among other things. Others see the stone formed into buildings, the marks of thousands of insects and a rat preening its face. Horowitz combines her minute observations with history |

and science, bringing new connections to the sometimes-mundane sights and sounds of a city. Her horizons were expanded during her walk with artist Maira Kalman, who viewed a church as more than just a place for religion; “it was about music and company and freedom of allegiances.” Through the eyes of the artist, “objects and people on our route became possibilities for interaction, rather than decoration or obstruction, as the urban pedestrian might define them.” From the multitude of typefaces found in street signs, to the differences in sounds made by a shuttle bus or a city bus, to the animals that share the city streets and sewers, each walk enabled Horowitz to perceive the same environment in a fresh, new way. Simply by paying attention, the author’s senses were opened to experiences she would have otherwise completely missed. By reading her engaging stories, readers can learn to see their own environments, whether city or country, and open their minds to the exciting world that surrounds them. There is no right or wrong way to do this; one just must be open to the possibilities and be willing to try.

An enjoyable closer look at what most people miss when walking through a city. (b/w drawings throughout)

have settled in England or the United States or other relatively peaceful locales after making his mark as an artistic war photographer, Hetherington chose to continue to travel to dangerous locales, worrying his family and friends while also assuaging their concerns with his sunny nature.

A first-rate biographical portrait that also deserves accolades for its insights into the minds of adventure-seeking photographers.

THE HANDS OF WAR A Tale of Endurance and Hope, From a Survivor of the Holocaust Ingram, Marione Skyhorse Publishing (160 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-1-62087-185-0

A Holocaust survivor’s novelistic account of persevering through the horrendous firebombing of her hometown of Hamburg, Germany.

Finely delineated details distinguish this memoir by Hamburg native Ingram, now an artist living in Washington, D.C. At age 8, in the summer of 1943, the author had to grow up fast: With her father coerced into working for the Luftwaffe in Belgium (he was beaten and pressured to divorce his Jewish wife), the author narrowly saved her mother from committing suicide by gassing herself in the apartment’s oven. Her mother was in despair after having received their deportation notice, and she was still reeling from the earlier deportations of her nearest relatives to occupied Russia. Almost immediately, however, the bombs began to drop around the neighborhood, and their apartment building crumbled, forcing mother and daughter to take to the streets to find safety. Here, Ingram inserts some staggering details, such as her mother’s hostile confrontation with the block’s air-raid shelter warden, who refused admittance to Jews and their rejection as well by the church. Having to keep moving through the scene of incendiary horror probably saved them. For the next 18 months, they managed to hide out on a nearby farm owned by a rather objectionable woman, Frau Pimber, who had earlier been entrusted with the care of Ingram’s middle sister, Helga, graced with “Aryan” looks, fair hair and eyes. A closing chapter encapsulates the harrowing survival tale of a youth Ingram met at the Blankenese refugee school who had been nearly worked to death at a slave-labor camp run by the “Cannon King,” Alfried Krupp.

A well-honed tale of momentous courage and strength.

HERE I AM The Story of Tim Hetherington, War Photographer Huffman, Alan Grove (256 pp.) $25.00 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-8021-2090-8

A biography of war correspondent Tim Hetherington (1970–2011), who died during a firefight in Libya while documenting the revolution there.

Huffman (Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History, 2009, etc.) recounts the career arc of British-born and -educated Hetherington while simultaneously providing insights into the mentality of war photographers during the past century. Hetherington seemed to win trust wherever he traveled and with whomever he collaborated professionally. For the most part, he did not parachute into war zones to shoot potentially prizewinning photographs and then depart quickly. Instead, he remained to document long-term problems as well as personally assist the victims of war. That characteristic became evident most prominently in the West African nation of Liberia, where Hetherington returned year after year to track war criminals and solidify relationships with rebel leaders. To casual observers, Hetherington seemed fearless, but to those who knew him well, he admitted to being frightened in a variety of dangerous situations. In the words of Sebastian Junger, Hetherington was a “bright spirit drawn to dark places.” Huffman also chronicles the Hetherington-Junger collaboration on the documentary film Restrepo, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Like so much of Hetherington’s other visual projects, Restrepo delved deeply into the relationship between young men and war. Though he could |

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“Nonfiction with the resonance of literary fiction and the impact of real tragedy.” from the world is moving around me

THE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO BOOK PUBLISHING SUCCESS

Kampmann, Eric; Atwell, Margot Beaufort (160 pp.) $12.95 paperback | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-8253-0687-7

A brief but comprehensive survey both of the crisis-beset book-publishing industry and of strategies for authors and publishers to get books on the market.

A rule, or so we wish, of how-to books on writing should be this: If the author has not written a prior book other than that how-to book, then it’s not to be taken seriously. So it is with publishing. The market is crowded with how-to-get-your-bookpublished books written by people with no discernible credentials, which is emphatically not the case with marketing guru Kampmann (late of Viking, St Martin’s, Simon & Schuster, etc.) and writer/editor/publishing insider Atwell. Their approach assumes no prior experience, for there is a fine line between professionalism and cluelessness, and it judiciously divides the landscape of publishing into the traditional and the new—and largely unexplored. They counsel that a new author might wish the shelter of a major New York trade house, with the proviso that “the biggest downside of being published by traditional publishers is that a title can easily get lost in the pack, creating the probability of very disappointing results.” True enough, as every midlist author knows. On the self-publishing front, the authors wisely advise that no book should go out the door without having been professionally edited, and they add plenty of other useful bits to the mix. A highlight, for instance, is the marketing timetable, which will be of tremendous help even to authors working with the majors and wanting to be sure things are happening when they should. The “success stories” that close the book are of a lily-gilding variety, however, and one wishes that the space had been given over to more of Kampmann and Atwell themselves.

A how-to book that belongs on many shelves.

THE WORLD IS MOVING AROUND ME A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake

Laferrière, Dany Homel, David—Trans.

Arsenal Pulp Press (192 pp.) $15.95 paperback | Jan. 15, 2013 978-1551524986

Keen observation, incisive analysis and passionate engagement mark this author’s account of the 2010 earthquake that devastated his native Haiti.

Through vignettes that range from a paragraph to a couple of pages, novelist Laferrière (I Am a Japanese Writer, 2011, etc.) delivers a knockout punch through prose favoring matter-of-fact 52

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understatement over sentimental histrionics. A literary festival brought him back from French-speaking Canada, where he emigrated to establish himself as a writer, to the homeland where his mother and much of his family still lives. He ordered dinner at a restaurant and then heard what sounded like a machine gun, a train or an explosion. It intensified: “The earth started shaking like a sheet of paper whipped by the wind. The low roar of buildings falling to their knees. They didn’t explode; they imploded, trapping people inside their bellies.” The author is no journalist, and he engages in none of what would conventionally be called reporting. Instead, he describes what he saw, how it felt and what it meant. For those who survived, the aftershocks continued: natural, personal, political, cultural. Laferrière is particularly sharp on the ambiguous motives and ambivalent effects of humanitarian charity and celebrities who helped keep the world’s spotlight on Haiti (and, of course, themselves), until attention turned to the next world calamity. The framing is particularly strong, beginning with vivid detail of the experience itself, culminating in a multileveled meditation on what it means to be Haitian, to be a survivor, to be a writer, to be alive.

“We say January 12 here the way they say September 11 in other places,” he writes of the cataclysm most vividly experienced at street level, which is where this memoir operates.

Nonfiction with the resonance of literary fiction and the impact of real tragedy.

EXPLODING THE PHONE The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell Lapsley, Phil Grove (416 pp.) $25.00 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-8021-2061-8

A rollicking history of the telephone system and the hackers who exploited its flaws.

Before the mid-20th century, longdistance phone calls were the domain of the now-extinct telephone operator. Beginning in the 1950s, AT&T introduced new equipment that allowed customers to place long-distance calls directly. These new switching machines communicated by sending tones back and forth at a specific pitch: 2,600 Hz, “or seventh octave E for the musically inclined.” In 1955, David Condon happened to stumble upon a Davy Crockett whistle at his local Woolworth’s which made just such a tone. Although the term would not be coined until years later, when Condon trilled his Crockett whistle into the handset, he became the first phone phreak—“someone obsessed with understanding, exploring, and playing with the telephone network.” In his debut, technology consultant Lapsley lays out an incredible clandestine history of these first hackers, who not only tricked the phone system into letting them make calls for free, but would show others how to do the same. They eventually built small devices called “blue boxes” so anyone with one of these boxes could cheat the phone company. Lapsley deftly escorts |

BRINGING MULLIGAN HOME The Other Side of the Good War

readers through the development of the modern telephone system (and how it was exploited), covering intricate details of phone technology with prose that is both attentive to detail yet easy to understand for general readers. Perhaps more importantly, the author weaves together a brilliant tapestry of richly detailed stories—the people and events he describes virtually come to life on the page. Taken as a whole, the book becomes nothing short of a love letter to the phone phreaks who “saw joy and opportunity in the otherwise mundane.”

A first-rate chronicle of an unexamined subculture.

Maharidge, Dale PublicAffairs (336 pp.) $26.99 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-1-58648-999-1

The story of a distinguished journalist’s search for his father’s war.

Pulitzer Prize winner Maharidge’s (Journalism/Columbia Univ.; Homeland, 2011, etc.) father was a Marine sergeant who fought on Okinawa, where he suffered brain damage in an explosion that killed one of the men in his command, Herman Mulligan.

Among the souvenirs the elder Maharidge brought home was an omnipresent photograph of himself and Mulligan, as well as sporadic explosive rages that terrified the author throughout his childhood. Maharidge received no diagnosis or treatment for his injury and refused to talk about the war to the end of his days. After his death, the author, “a person obsessed with the past and what I could not heal,” set out to discover the truth about his father’s wartime experiences, learn who Mulligan was and, if possible, locate his inexplicably unidentified gravesite. He conducted interviews with almost 30 elderly members of his father’s company, and he presents 12 of them at length. He also traveled to Okinawa to visit the site of his father’s injury and meet with civilian survivors of the battle in an effort to lay his father’s demons to rest. The result is a moving memoir of the war by someone who wasn’t there but who suffered from wartime injuries just as surely as his father had. The veterans’ interviews are sensitively conducted, powerful and disturbing, graphic descriptions of brutal and largely unnecessary combat with a suicidally determined enemy, and frank accounts of atrocities committed by both sides. Equally importantly, some also explore the men’s difficulties in reentering civilian life, placing in context the elder Maharidge’s often unsuccessful struggles to live with his experiences among people who could not imagine or understand them.

A powerful narrative of the dark side of American combat in the Pacific theater and the persistence of resulting injuries decades after the war ended.

MAKING WAR AT FORT HOOD Life and Uncertainty in a Military Community

MacLeish, Kenneth T. Princeton Univ. (280pp.) $29.95 | Feb. 24, 2013 978-0-691-15274-5

The chronicle of MacLeish’s (Medicine, Health and Society/Vanderbilt Univ.) immersion in the culture of Fort Hood, Texas, to understand daily life on

military bases.

The author spent a year observing the rhythms of life and death at Fort Hood, a base with about 55,000 individuals, many of whom have returned to the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan. MacLeish expanded his doctoral thesis in this book, so the language is sometimes arcane, meant for a scholarly audience accustomed to authors’ devoting significant portions of a book explaining the methodology employed. Such clinical research can seem cold when set against an intentional culture of violence, in which the military troops are being trained to kill. MacLeish opens with a traumatized veteran called Dime, who resides near Fort Hood after experiencing the horrors of war in Iraq. Dime is receiving assistance for his various traumas, but MacLeish suggests that escaping the trauma is especially difficult when living near a military base, where war violence is anticipated and institutionalized—it is the norm, routine.

The author ends with the mass killing on the base on November 5, 2009, when Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire inside the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center.

Notwithstanding the Hasan incident, the image of Fort Hood had been suffering because of the base’s recent highest-ever rate of suicide.

A depressing yet enlightening account that mostly overcomes its academic jargon.

MY INAPPROPRIATE LIFE Some Material Not Suitable for Small Children, Nuns, or Mature Adults

McDonald, Heather Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $24.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-4516-7222-0 Chelsea Lately writer and producer McDonald (You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again, etc.) offers a collection of stories about her personal and professional lives. |

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The School of Life (and Sex) b y

How to Think More About Sex

de Botton, Alain Picador (192 pp.) $16 Jan. 1st, 2013 978-1-250-03065-8

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Though people are definitely buying Alain de Botton’s How to Think More About Sex, de Botton knows some readers won’t buy his book in their local bookstore. “The sales have been much higher online,” de Botton said during a recent interview.

“There’s still an awful lot of shame [about sex]. Shame is the key word.”

It’s this sense of shame that de Botton’s new title seeks to shatter. The author of 12 books, many of them best-sellers, including Status Anxiety, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work and How Proust Can Change Your Life, de Botton has earned a reputation as a skilled writer able to make the most difficult philosophical issues accessible to all readers.

Yet the impetus for his newest book came from a different project. De Botton is the founder and chairman of central London’s The School of Life. Occupying a sunny spot on a busy street near a kebab shop and several cafes, The School of Life offers classes, lectures, workshops and individual sessions on life’s thorniest issues. Anyone can step in off the street and take classes such as “How to Stay Calm,” “Spirituality Without God” or “How to Find a Job You Love.”

According to de Botton, the school is “trying to do in a physical space what I’ve been up to in books for a number of years.” Both the school and the new School of Life series, published in the United States by Picador, “use culture, defined as the humanities [and] the arts, as a resource to deal with the big and small questions of life.” The goal is to drag knowledge out of academia’s ivory tower and use it to make people happy. As de Botton says, “This stuff can be useful.”

For such slim books, The School of Life series has an ambitious goal: the revitalization of one of the literary world’s most maligned genres: the self-help book. “Self-help books are tactical, often mechanical,” de Botton says. “We wanted to slightly upend that. A book can be helpful if it’s quite dark, maybe even more helpful.”

How to Think More About Sex doesn’t provide diagrams or preachy advice to help you in the bedroom.

It turns out, the problem is not how much, but how we think about sex. De Botton thinks everyone would be a lot happier if we stopped worrying that we’re unhappy, lovelorn deviants. Instead, we should accept that we’re unhappy, lovelorn deviants.

According to de Botton, modern society has instilled in us impossible sexual and romantic ideals. Our inevitable failure to live up to these ideals leads to shame and anxiety. “What tortures people is the thought that other people are having a great sex life,” de Botton said. He says we’ve convinced ourselves “that sex is a birthright, one of the gifts of modern, liberated society…but it’s not true. It was never supposed to be completely easy.” |

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It feels like a relief, doesn’t it? Sex, fidelity, love—de Botton argues that none of it is as easy or straightforward as we are made to believe. How to Think More About Sex asks tough questions: Is anyone sexually “normal”? Is adultery so bad? How damaging is pornography? Are happy, satisfied marriages even possible?

De Botton’s answers might not fill every reader with cheer. In the “Adultery” chapter, de Botton rewrites traditional marriage vows to include: “I promise to be disappointed by you and you alone....I have surveyed the different options for unhappiness, and it is you I have chosen to commit myself to.”

How romantic.

Yet the intelligent warmth of de Botton’s writing can make even the bleakest claims palatable.

How to Think More About Sex never condescends to the reader, and it also never loses sight of humor. “A useful self-help book on this subject ought hence to focus on the management of pain rather than its outright elimination,” de Botton writes in the introduction. “We should hope to find a literary version of a hospice, not a hospital.”

But if How to Think More About Sex is a hospice, then it is a comfortable one with a caring staff. And this seemingly discouraging pessimism is actually a specific part of de Botton’s larger argument. “A little darkness can correct the problem of feeling persecuted,” de Botton says. By facing the truth about sex, love and marriage, he argues, we can do away with many of the anxieties associated with some of the strongest forces in our daily lives.

Despite the weighty topics and scandalous issues, de Botton says his goal is that “people have fun and they learn stuff.” Students of de Botton’s school of life won’t have true happiness just handed to them. But if they’re brave enough to pick up the books, then they’ll face the questions that can lead them there.

How to Think More About Sex is reviewed on p. 2791 of the 12/15 issue of Kirkus Reviews.

9 Richard Z. Santos is working on his first novel. He’s a member of NBCC and PEN; his work has appeared in Nimrod, The Rumpus, The San Antonio Express News, and many other publications. p hoto BY V I N C E N T STARR

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“Dense for general readers but an excellent scholarly read encompassing new ideas for Lewis devotees or those interested in religious argument.” from c.s. lewis

McDonald strives to be a good parent, be financially responsible, spend time with other parents in Los Angeles and take advantage of the perks of being on the successful E! show— e.g., hanging out with celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, who is a friend of McDonald’s boss, Chelsea Handler. McDonald’s goals often clash and result in humorous encounters. Fortunately, the author does not take herself, or any of the said goals, too seriously. Handler’s pranks provide plenty of fodder for the book, while other material comes from McDonald’s husband, a cheap, stay-at-home mortgage broker, parents who live next door, and a sister who asked her for an egg. The author laughs at herself more than anyone else, and her humor is very similar to Handler’s. Those who read My Horizontal Life might find this book to be the less-funny version. However, while Handler’s stories are mostly about being a single woman, McDonald looks at the perils of being a working mother, which should resonate with a large portion of her readers. Many of the stories center around parenting mishaps, such as when McDonald accidentally took her children to a debauched party in Las Vegas or when she dressed a teddy bear as a third child to be allowed in the carpool lane after she dropped off her children at school.

A mildly funny book lacking any key takeaways or lessons—good for somebody looking for an easy read to kill time.

C.S. LEWIS: A LIFE Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet

McGrath, Alister Tyndale House (350 pp.) $24.99 | Mar. 13, 2013 978-1-4143-3935-1

Christian theologian McGrath (Theology and Ministry/King’s College London; Mere Apologetics, 2012, etc.) dissects the life of C.S. Lewis 50 years after the author’s death, focusing on how his life was impacted by theology and vice versa.

In this chronological account, McGrath splits Lewis’ life into sections, beginning with childhood and then moving through his many years at Oxford, his time at Cambridge, and then his death and posthumous popularity. An entire section is also devoted to the Chronicles of Narnia and its religious meaning, conception and popularity. Based almost completely on Lewis’ letters, the biography is rich with information but short on the sort of anecdotes that make author biographies so colorful. McGrath focuses mainly on Lewis’ religious development, with a secondary theme of the relationships that affected his work. This concentration on Lewis’ role in apologetics may be due to the fact that McGrath himself is an apologist and finds common ground with Lewis in this area. While this focus may be useful for Lewis scholars and die-hard fans, it feels narrow for a literary biography. McGrath is clearly a huge fan of his subject; while he doesn’t shy away from criticism of the man’s life or work, he does downplay it. For instance, in discussing Lewis’ |

Space Trilogy, McGrath states, “The quality of these is somewhat uneven, with the third being particularly difficult in places.

Yet the main thing to appreciate is not so much their plots and points, but the medium through which they are expressed—stories, which captivate the imagination and open the mind to an alternative way of thinking.” This is characteristic of McGrath’s attitude throughout the book. While not necessarily a problem, it wears thin in some places where more support is needed to make a truly sound argument.

Dense for general readers but an excellent scholarly read encompassing new ideas for Lewis devotees or those interested in religious argument.

MARKETPLACE 3.0 Rewriting the Rules of Borderless Business

Mikitani, Hiroshi Palgrave Macmillan (256 pp.) $27.00 | Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-230-34214-9

A Japanese e-commerce guru tells how to succeed in online business by breaking all the rules.

Now 49, Harvard-educated Mikitani founded Tokyo-based Rakuten in 1997 and turned it into the world’s third-largest e-commerce company, which includes Kobo and Buy.com. In Japan, his online shopping mall offers some 95 million products from 40,000 merchants. In this upbeat debut, he describes his maverick business philosophy, aimed at challenging conventional wisdom and empowering sellers to create lasting relationships with customers. In 2010, recognizing that the world was “moving toward a more borderless economic experience,” Mikitani required that employees worldwide speak English, the international language of business. Dismissed as wrongheaded by many observers, this corporate “Englishnization” has eliminated the need for translators and sped up internal communication. “Interactions between employees in different countries that used to take two or three days could now take two or three minutes,” he writes. Often contrasting his own approach with that of his chief competitor, Amazon.com, Mikitani stresses that the Internet is not simply a vending machine, but a valuable tool for collaboration that allows merchants and customers to communicate directly in a continuous loop. Offering tips on how other companies can apply his approach, he discusses the importance of empowerment and goal setting, the benefits of a global mindset, how to make online shopping an entertaining experience and why the human touch is vital to business success.

Nothing groundbreaking, but a useful guide to “the Rakuten way.” (First printing of 75,000)

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RIVER BEND CHRONICLE The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll Amid the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa

paid little attention to locating the headquarters, although most inclined toward America (including the Soviet Union, anxious to keep it far away). Today, few consider the U.N. the enforcer of world peace, but that was a common hope as World War II drew to a close. As such, boosters envisioned their city as the “Capital of the World,” which would also enjoy the economic benefits of hosting a large institution and its staff. A scattering of enthusiasts buttonholed delegates at the spring 1945 San Francisco conference that wrote the U.N. charter, but an avalanche descended on London six months later to lobby diplomats engaged in nailing down its organization. Mires devotes most of the book to unsuccessful candidates ranging from Chicago and Philadelphia to Niagara Falls, the Black Hills of South Dakota, and Tuskahoma, Okla., which deluged officials with sales pitches, posters, brochures, photo albums and futuristic architectural drawings. New York remained aloof from the hard sell but took for granted that any great international organization belonged there. It helped that powerful figures such as Robert Moses and Nelson Rockefeller took an interest and even more that Nelson’s father donated land along the East River now occupied by the U.N. buildings.

Although little was at stake and everyone knows the outcome, Mires works hard and mostly successfully to hold her readers’ interest in the energetic, often-quaint publicrelation antics of the 1940s.

Miller, Ben Lookout Books (336 pp.) $17.95 paperback | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-9849000-0-8

A New York City intellectual recalls his childhood in Davenport, Iowa.

This debut memoir by widely published essayist Miller aspires to fall somewhere between John Kennedy Toole and David Sedaris, but there is little humor in this stream-ofconsciousness narrative about the minutia of Midwestern life. The author attempts to lionize a supposedly tough childhood that turns out to be quite ordinary, despite Miller’s best efforts to lend pregnant pause to every mundane detail. The mere choosing of a Christmas tree inspires this passage: “The obvious connection between this emaciated pine and Charlie Brown’s unfortunate tree-lot pick was not voiced by anyone. Or, I should say, could not be voiced, lest we admit our life was a cartoon, and ridiculous as circumstances often were, always, on some level, they remained very real, too.” For the most part, we are bystanders to the panoramic film playing out behind young Miller’s eyes, as he aspires to be a writer and makes grand observations about his family and neighbors. His Writers’ Studio, a group of misfit scribblers, is given surprisingly short shrift, but much drama is inspired by the author’s three “mean sisters,” one of whom is ultimately the victim of her own tragic story.

Miller also gives much play to elderly neighbors like Mr. Hickey, a cigar-puffing widower whose ephemera spills across the pages like a still life. There’s no doubt that the author has a gift for language, but the recklessness with which he wields his talent takes the spark out of the story. There is also a degree to which he attempts to demonize his now deeply estranged family—he deliberately distanced himself for years while simultaneously wallowing in his own remembrances—that makes the memoir’s primary subject come off as self-pitying and thin-skinned.

A brick of a memoir that carries very little real weight.

(Author appearances in New York, Boston, Denver; tours of the Midwest and North Carolina)

HITMAKER The Man and His Music

Mottola, Tommy with Fussman, Cal Grand Central Publishing (400 pp.) $27.99 | Jan. 29, 2013 978-0-446-58518-7

The former head of Sony Music Entertainment pens an earthy, self-congratulatory memoir of his rise to the top of the music industry during its most lucrative era.

With an assist from co-author Fussman (After Jackie: Pride, Prejudice, and Baseball’s Forgotten Heroes: An Oral History, 2007, etc.), Mottola affects a conversational style steeped in the flavors of his Bronx origins. “Arthur Avenue was one of my first tastemakers,” he writes. “It taught me what is good.” The mélange of sounds he heard in his childhood neighborhood—black doo-wop, Italian pop and Latin salsa, among others—would stay with him as he became a tastemaker for the world. Actually, Mottola came of age in Westchester, where he attended a prep school. He skipped college and, with his parents’ backing, attempted to launch a musical career as a Bobby Darrin–style crooner under the stage name T.D. Valentine. While he never scored a hit of his own, Mottola learned what went into making hits for other people. His star rose as a music manager when he gently steered his first clients Hall & Oates away from folk and progressive rock to their trademark blue-eyed Philly soul.

Mottola was virtually unique among his corporate peers in having the experience of working as a musician and manager, and

CAPITAL OF THE WORLD The Race to Host the United Nations Mires, Charlene New York Univ. (320 pp.) $29.95 | Mar. 4, 2013 978-0-8147-0794-4

Mires (History/Rutgers Univ., Camden; Independence Hall in American Memory, 2002) delivers an amusing account of the intense, if not world-shaking competition for the U.N. headquarters.

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“Mulgrew returns to his formative years at an exclusive prep school for bright boys and finds a ton of absurdist comedy gold to mine.” from 236 pounds of class vice president

STILL POINTS NORTH Surviving the World’s Greatest Alaskan Childhood

he used it to great advantage, carefully molding the careers of Gloria Estefan, Celine Dion and Shakira. Most notoriously, perhaps, he tightly controlled the output of ex-wife Mariah Carey; she wanted to break out into hip-hop and got pushed into making an album of Christmas music instead. “You’re trying to make me into a franchise,” she once told Mottola. “What do you think I am, McDonald’s?” The author concedes that he might have wronged Carey, but he is unapologetic about his role in turning the music business into a global multibillion-dollar corporate industry. Approving blurbs from colleagues between chapters back him up.

Music lovers will be divided over whether they agree with Mottola and friends that those contributions were net positive, but business students will find his insiders’ view valuable and his street smarts charming.

Newman, Leigh Dial Press (272 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 19, 2013 978-1-4000-6924-8

Oprah.com deputy editor Newman looks back on her life, from her childhood in Alaska to her family life in New York.

The author’s parents divorced when she was young, and she spent the school months with her mother in Baltimore, Md., and her summers with her father and his new family in Alaska. After she graduated from college, Newman landed a job at a travel magazine that allowed her to take trips to Europe while keeping a small apartment in New York. The author expresses many thoughts about her relationship with her husband but more importantly, with her parents— her mother was a struggling single mother with three jobs who appeared to have mental or emotional imbalances, and her father was a hunter and fisherman, a lover of wildlife survival and outdoor activities. Newman expresses resentment toward her mother due to her odd behavior and toward her father for being temperamental. Her relationship with both of them, however, is mostly predictable and doesn’t make for exciting reading; the same is true of her relationship with her husband, whom she left for a period because, as she repeats often, she was uncomfortable with commitment. She told him they should just stay married without saying much about the emotions that led to that moment. Her story and musings about why they got back together are not convincing or entertaining. The most interesting part of the book occurs at the beginning, in which the author describes outdoor life in Alaska.

The subtitle is exaggerated. Other than the setting, Newman’s story is fairly average. (6 b/w photos)

236 POUNDS OF CLASS VICE PRESIDENT A Memoir of Teenage Insecurity, Obesity, and Virginity

Mulgrew, Jason Perennial/HarperCollins (240 pp.) $14.99 paperback | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-06-208083-7

Mulgrew (Everything Is Wrong with Me, 2010) returns to his formative years at an exclusive prep school for bright boys and finds a ton of absurdist comedy gold to mine.

As a teen, the author enjoyed growing up in a close-knit, lower-middle-class neighborhood in Philadelphia, where scrapes were common and everybody knew your business. But Mulgrew also pined for the rarified atmosphere of elevated learning offered by Saint Joseph’s Preparatory School. The author has a good sense of comic timing, whether he’s relating his introduction to the wonderful world of self-gratification or describing his penchant for wearing a full-length fur cape around school grounds. Mulgrew’s cynical run for class vice president serves as the penultimate moment of his often-raucous recollections, but there are plenty of other hilarious vignettes along the way. Luckless in love, the author also garners both compassion and condemnation for his feckless way with women. Characters from Mulgrew’s previous memoir, like his two-fisted dad and no-nonsense mom, make return appearances that are both funny and profound. Relentlessly self-deprecating yet unabashedly accepting, the author displays a palpable sense of humanity.

Things only slightly slow down and threaten to veer into potentially pretentious territory when Mulgrew runs down his alltime favorite songs. He quickly redeems himself, however, with an emotionally honest story involving his father and a rebuilt motorcycle that the ill-equipped son cannot possibly master.

A young writer finds once more that it isn’t too early to look back on his life and laugh out loud.

ON THE MUSLIM QUESTION

Norton, Anne Princeton Univ. (272 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 28, 2013 978-0-691-15704-7

What to do about the Muslims? It’s a question, writes Norton (Political Science/Univ. of Pennsylvania; Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, 2004, etc.), that non-Muslims have been asking, and the answers have been few.

If the question of a religiously observant Jewish enclave within European societies weighed heavily on thinkers of the Enlightenment, then the matter of a religiously observant—not to say fundamentalist—Muslim enclave within the secular West has excited much recent argument, principled or not. Norton observes, for instance, that for many thinkers, including the late Christopher Hitchens, the “Muslim question” is really the |

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question of religion writ large, with the added twist of whether a secular society should be expected to tolerate those who would dismantle it if they came into power. The governments of the West, writes the author, “hesitate to include [Muslims], hesitate to extend them the rights and privileges of citizenship.” That is less true of the United States than of Europe, and if Muslims in this country suffer “discrimination, surveillance, detention, and imprisonment,” by Norton’s account, the worst offenders have been European nationalists such as Holland’s murdered agitator Theo van Gogh. While those nationalists have reacted to provocations such as the rioting in the Muslim world in the wake of apparently anti-Islamic cartoons in a Danish newspaper, then, Norton remarks, it has to be recalled that almost all the violence that ensued was visited by Muslims upon other Muslims in Muslim countries. Norton sometimes channels Slavoj Zizek in a knotty and not entirely satisfactory way, as when she offers a sort of semiotics of space at Abu Ghraib: “The Iraqis are confined in shackles, in cells, in a prison, in a country they cannot leave, whose boundaries they cannot close.” Mostly, though, she offers a sympathetic, tolerant and evenhanded view of events.

Is there a clash of civilizations, as Samuel Huntington maintained, between the Muslim world and the West?

Norton’s response will be of interest to students of geopolitics and Islamic studies.

executives, a senior and a junior partner, would better represent the now-divided polity and would be more efficient than the single-executive model, restoring some of the due speed the Founders hoped for. The author closes by noting that even if his proposal is a bit pie-in-the-sky, he hopes that even considering it will admit some air into a stagnant political debate and recognize “the connection between the one-person, one-party president and the dysfunction in Washington, D.C.” A novel and provocative thesis worth hearing out.

BEND, NOT BREAK A Life in Two Worlds Ping Fu Current (288 pp.) $27.95 | Jan. 1, 2013 978-1-59184-552-2

A Chinese-American businesswoman’s memoir of exile, torture, immigration and, ultimately, astounding success.

With the assistance of Huffington Post blogger Fox (Fortytude: Making the Next Decades the Best Years of Your Life, 2011, etc.), Ping Fu, founder of Geomagic, a 3D digital-reality solution company, reveals the inspiring story of her life. Until age 8, Ping and her intellectual, doting parents lived comfortably in Shanghai.

That existence was blown apart by the Cultural Revolution, during which her family was regarded as an enemy of the state.

During the 1960s and ’70s, Ping and her younger sister were confined to a camp where she endured years of vicious torture that included being gang-raped when she was 10. Despite receiving no formal education between the ages of 8 and 18, she went on to attend college, but her thesis, on infanticide, landed her in hot water with politicians. Exiled, she arrived in the United States with less than $100 and English so limited she could only say, “hello,” “help” and “thank you.” Ping’s early years in America were peppered with encounters that ran the gamut from surreal (she was kidnapped at the airport upon her arrival) to quotidian (she studied relentlessly). In 1988, she earned a degree in computer science and joined the team that created NCSA Mosaic, later known as Netscape. She and her husband subsequently founded Geomagic. Ping advises women aspiring to be in a position similar to hers to “[t]hink about moving forward to make personal or social progress, rather than moving higher to gain a superior position.”

The book reflects the tone of its author: clear, honest and unassuming.

TWO PRESIDENTS ARE BETTER THAN ONE The Case for a Bipartisan Executive Branch Orentlicher, David New York Univ. (304 pp.) $29.95 | Mar. 11, 2013 978-0-8147-8949-0

A pipe dream of a book that dares to suggest that we can actually get along,

politically speaking.

The Founding Fathers, writes Orentlicher (Law/Indiana Univ.), envisioned the presidency as “a substitute for the British royal family, a constitutional monarch, if you will.” The Congress was supposed to act with deliberation, the president with all due speed, and thus, both “order and energy” would come to the national government. That vision, Orentlicher argues, has been betrayed by the growth of the imperial executive branch, the concurrent growth of political parties and party ideology, and the still more concurrent gridlock that seems to characterize the legislative branch and its interface with the executive. Given all that, the author proposes stealing a page from the French and electing a pair of executives, one from the winning party and one from the runner-up, a scheme that has the virtue of making room for a third party in a way that the current two-party system does not. It is to be noted, of course, that the prime minister/president system of France would likely not translate neatly to our current Constitution, which, of course, would require emending. Orentlicher argues that two 58

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“An insightful peek into a time long gone, told with skill, humor and wit.” from servants’ hall

SERVANTS’ HALL A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance Powell, Margaret St. Martin’s (192 pp.) $22.99 | Jan. 15, 2013 978-1-250-02929-4 978-1-250-02928-7 e-book

The no-nonsense follow-up to Below Stairs: A Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir that Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey (2012).

In this latest book, which was originally published in Britain more than 30 years ago, the author explores the ramifications of what was then considered a shocking event in the class-bound culture of early-20th-century Britain. Rose, the fetching underparlourmaid to the wealthy Wardham family, did the unthinkable, eloping with Gerald, the family’s only son. Powell deftly explores the reactions of the family—Gerald’s father refused to see the couple ever—as well as those of the servants below the stairs, who seemed as disconcerted as the family. Though Powell and another young servant were delighted with the change in status the romance afforded Rose, she understood the hazards as well. “She couldn’t see that she’d never really be one of them; she’d never be able to keep up the conversation at dinner for she never read, not even novels, and knew absolutely nothing about politics or the arts,” she writes. Throughout the narrative, Powell offers insights illuminating the life and times for house servants following World War I, including the strict hierarchy among those who spent their lives working for wealthy families.

She also looks at the sexual mores of the times, the incredible meals created by armies of servants toiling in the basements of the big houses and her own ideas regarding her own marriage.

“I was determined to marry and achieve an equal partnership,” she writes. “Although I would probably still have little money, I intended to have, in my marriage, as much freedom as the male had always had by inalienable right.”

An insightful peek into a time long gone, told with skill, humor and wit.

THE HOPKINS TOUCH Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler

Roll, David Oxford Univ. (320 pp.) $34.95 | Jan. 4, 2013 978-0-19-989195-5

Examination of Franklin Roosevelt adviser Harry Hopkins (1890–1946) and his largely behind-the-scenes role in the outcome of World War II. Iowa-native Hopkins rose through the ranks of public service during the 1920s to become one of the architects of FDR’s |

New Deal programs. A bureaucratic genius with serious health problems, he was a controversial figure in his day. He once harbored presidential ambitions of his own, but his lasting influence, argues Roll (co-author: Louis Johnson and the Arming of America: The Roosevelt and Truman Years, 2005), is due to his diplomatic efforts on FDR’s behalf with the key members of the Allied coalition to defeat the Nazis. The author writes in a clear, concise style and is able to keep the narrative moving briskly through policy discussions and squabbles among politicians, diplomats and military leaders. The “touch” referred to in the title is the same quality of personality that enabled Hopkins to form relationships with not only Roosevelt and Churchill, but also Stalin and other officials (Churchill dubbed him “Lord Root of the Matter”). Hopkins’ unique relationship with FDR has been covered before, most famously in fellow aide Robert Sherwood’s 1948 Pulitzer Prize–winning Roosevelt and Hopkins.

While conceding his debt to Sherwood, Roll makes use of copious material that was not available at that time, including documents from the former Soviet archives, to present a fuller portrait. The storyline that emerges is that of all-too-human men—often petulant, stubborn, wrongheaded or too easily manipulated—making decisions that would affect the course of world history.

A compelling portrait of a World War II hero whose victories took place far from the battlefield. (32 b/w illustrations)

DEATH GRIP A Climber’s Escape from Benzo Madness Samet, Matt St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $25.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-1-250-00423-9

Turgid, overstuffed account of overcoming prescription-drug addiction.

Former Climbing magazine editorin-chief Samet (The Climbing Dictionary, 2011) seemingly lived a dream life as a 20-something devoted to competitive rock climbing. Yet he found himself increasingly dependent on the class of drugs known as benzodiazepines, which include such popular medications as Xanax, Valium and the powerful Klonopin. He was horrified to discover their addictive qualities and the difficulty of withdrawal. As he struggled with his benzo addiction, he portrays his life as an endless series of failed relationships with long-suffering women, multiple soul-destroying hospitalizations and many go-rounds with various therapists, portrayed in terms of condescending caricature. Ultimately, Samet concludes that only he has the inner strength to heal: “[I]f I don’t research and solve this nightmare myself, no one will. These so-called mental health professionals are not equipped to help someone like me, nor do they seem particularly willing. All they can do is get you on drugs—not off.” The strengths of this book, besides the apparent depth of its pharmacological grounding, are Samet’s descriptions of his rock-climbing exploits. He conveys a sense of the technical kirkus.com

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MAVERICK GENIUS The Pioneering Odyssey of Freeman Dyson

discipline this obscure sport demands and its physical risks and emotional rewards. Unfortunately, these passages are nuggets within long, repetitive reflections on his star-crossed attempts to get off pills and his angry screeds regarding the pharmaceutical and psychiatric industries. Samet attempts to fuse too many elements—climbing memoir, report on benzo risks, angry account of recovery traumas—bound together with artificialseeming dialogue and a melodramatic and self-pitying tone.

Given the widespread nature of prescription-drug abuse, the book may prove useful to people facing similar circumstances, but reading it is a slog.

Schewe, Phillip F. Dunne/St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-312-64235-8 978-1-250-02101-4 e-book

The remarkable life and times of Freeman Dyson, whose broad-ranging contributions to modern science included quantum physics, the exploration of space, genetic engineering and more.

Born in Britain in 1923, Dyson’s career began in World War II. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in mathematics, he was assigned to Bomber Command Headquarters and tasked with analyzing the effectiveness of British raids on Germany. Schewe (Joint Quantum Institute/Univ. of Maryland; The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World, 2006) chronicles the evolution of Dyson’s career, illuminating the scientific issues as they unfolded in terms comprehensible to lay readers. After the war, Dyson emigrated to the U.S. and connected with scientists who had been involved with the Manhattan Project and were now turning their attention back to fundamental questions in particle physics and quantum field theory. The hot topic of the day was quantum electrodynamics, and the two major contenders, Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman, appeared to be at odds. It was Dyson’s brilliant contribution that unified their theories. While this was the high point of Dyson’s career, his major contributions continued.

After several years at Cornell University, he was invited by Robert Oppenheimer to join Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, where he still works today. Although he joined the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament in 1980, Dyson also worked for the Pentagon as a technical consultant. While he was unwilling to collaborate actively with the author, Schewe nonetheless benefited from interviews with Dyson’s friends and family.

A fascinating account of an iconoclastic scientific polymath and the lively collection of scientists who were his friends.

THE NETWORK Portrait Conversations

Schatz, Lincoln Smithsonian Books (272 pp.) $39.95 | Dec. 11, 2012 978-1-58834-335-2

Something gets lost in this analog “translation,” as Chicago-based artist Schatz calls this book, of his monumental digital work in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, which goes on display in December 2012.

Schatz has assembled what he calls “generative video portraits” of 89 of the nation’s—and primarily Washington, D.C.’s— most powerful people. The subjects are from politics, primarily, but also business, technology, philanthropy and the media. The list includes dozens of well-known movers and shakers—Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Grover Norquist, David Gergen, Cokie Roberts, Karl Rove, etc.—but also many who are not as known outside their particular fields but are nevertheless part of “the network” at the center of national power. Using multiple cameras, Schatz’s studio reassembled the video he shot in Washington to create complex, painterly and collagelike images of his subjects speaking to his questions (which don’t appear in video or in print). Stills from the video appear alongside the edited text of the interviews in the book, which run one directly after the other with minimal white space between them. Each interview begins with a called-out declaration of name and position (“I’m Jim Leach. I’m the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities”) followed by a straightforward personal history and explanation of how the subject came to his or her current job, as well as reflections on the current state of affairs, most guardedly optimistic. The juxtaposition of these interesting but not earth-shattering narratives with the strange, sometimes ghostly images of their authors is jarring, and it’s difficult to discern if the artist intended to flatter his powerful subjects or present a critique of them that can only be experienced in the digital format.

May find an audience with Beltway groupies but not much more. (300 color photos)

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WORKS CITED An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and Misbehavior Schrand, Brandon R. Bison/Univ. of Nebraska (240 pp.) $16.95 paperback | Mar. 1, 2013 978-0-8032-4337-8

Schrand (Creative Writing/Univ. of Idaho; The Enders Hotel: A Memoir, 2008) returns with a coming-of-age memoir involving around 30 influential books.

The author had a novel idea: Pick a bunch of books, arrange them alphabetically by author surname and write about the |

“A carefully written and surprising biography of one of science’s unsung heroes.” from nature’s oracle

period in his life when each book was prominent. With this decision, Schrand eschews standard chronology and keeps readers alert—a chapter about his experience in his first college English class is followed by one about ninth grade. But the flow remains generally forward, from early boyhood onward.

The overall, eventually tiresome, narrative is this: I came from a fairly rough Idaho background; I screwed up in school; I screwed up big-time in college; I experimented with drugs; I had lots of sex; I married a good woman; she helped me grow up; I became a father; I matured; I got graduate degrees (and really good grades); I got a job and published a book. Schrand’s books are generally unsurprising. Hemingway, John Irving, Toni Morrison, S.E. Hinton, Orwell, etc.—with a few Westerners mixed in, including Barry Lopez, Annie Proulx and Wallace Stegner.

Schrand is not always careful about the consistency of his imagery. “Hindsight storms my mind,” he observes in one place; in another, he talks metaphorically about “a new book that washes up on the shores” (was it in a waterproof container?). The occasional cliché pops up, as well—e.g., he gets his head around things, and electricity courses through his body.

A middling memoir.

DEAD RUN The Murder of a Lawman and the Greatest Manhunt of the Modern American West Schultz, Dan St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $25.99 | Mar. 26, 2013 978-0-312-68188-3 978-1-250-02342-1 e-book

A journalist speculates on the true, if blurry story behind one of America’s

largest manhunts.

In May 1998, three young survivalist types—ringleader Jason McVean, Alan “Monte” Pilon and Robert Mason— unleashed hell in the small town of Cortez, Colo. After stealing a water truck, the three fugitives gunned down police officer Dale Claxton in cold blood. These heavily armed men commenced on a shooting spree that injured several other cops before they disappeared into the desert in Utah. All three were later found dead—one nearly a decade later. Schultz does an admirable job of stitching together the slim threads of their lives and their anti-government, militialike mindset. It often seems, though, as if the author is bending particulars to suit his narrative. There are some explicit accusations pointed at law enforcement officers—Schultz strongly implies that Pilon’s suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound was rigged, and every slim thread is pulled surrounding the late discovery of McVean’s remains. It’s unfortunate that Schultz seems determined to mythologize the crime spree in the context of “frontier justice,” with numerous comparisons made to history.

“The gunshots heard on a bridge in Cortez…that May morning in 1998 were echoes of our Wild West past, the sound of the gunshots first fired by Billy the Kid, Kid Curry, and Killer |

Miller, bouncing through the decades of legend and myth,” Schultz writes. There are some fascinating sidebars about the contributions of Native-American trackers, but shoehorning in an unsubstantiated motive cribbed from Edward Abbey’s classic The Monkey Wrench Gang may be the last straw.

A flawed but stylistic story that uses the elements of a terrible crime to fuel a meditation on Western culture.

(8-page b/w photograph insert)

NATURE’S ORACLE A Life of W.D. Hamilton Segerstrale, Ullica Oxford Univ. (496 pp.) $35.00 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-0-19-860727-4

Biography of W.D. Hamilton (1936– 2000), a revolutionary thinker and scientist whose outlier methods and ideas isolated him from the scientific establishment; he would later be vindicated as a brilliant contributor to evolutionary biology.

For all of Darwin’s brilliance, his theories were incomplete: Tricky concepts like altruism and kin selection—even Richard Dawkins’ “selfish gene”—were left for future generations to unravel. Hamilton, a mathematician and evolutionary biologist, spent his life in passionate pursuit of clues as to why evolution operates to ensure the survival of the genes of an organism and not the survival of the organism itself. By 1964, while still a graduate student, Hamilton had worked out an elegant mathematical solution, but he struggled to get his peers to see its innovation and prescience. Hamilton struggled to conform to institutional practices and persisted in pursuing unpopular truths he felt were paramount to scientific progress. The result is a body of work rich with insight, and since his death, his work has since been hailed as yielding critical insights to theories of animal altruism. Segerstrale (Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond, 2000, etc.) provides a uniquely personal account of Hamilton’s adventurous and iconoclastic life, drawing from a rich collection of papers, correspondence, and interviews with family members and colleagues.

Her nuanced, linear storytelling reveals a man of complicated genius unusually attuned to the entanglements of science and ethics. Throughout his career, Hamilton traveled across the world, and his experiences with different cultures and creatures had a profound effect on his philosophy. He spent time in the Congo collecting data to support the polio vaccine theory of the origin of AIDS, an issue few others dared broach due to its controversial social and medical implications. The author brings to light the courageous and empathetic character behind the misunderstood and retrospectively appreciated scientist.

A carefully written and surprising biography of one of science’s unsung heroes. (20 b/w illustrations)

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FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys

that mathematicians could make new discoveries. In fact, mathematics is as creative as physics, writes prolific popularizer Stewart (Mathematics Emeritus/Univ. of Warwick; The Mathematics of Life, 2011): “Mathematics is newer, and more diverse, than most of us imagine.” Goldbach’s Conjecture—that every even number can be written as the sum of two prime numbers (250 years old, probably true but not proven)—provides the background for a chapter on the unruly field of prime numbers: those divisible only by one and itself (3, 5, 7, 11, 13…). Squaring the Circle—constructing a square with an area identical to a given circle (2,500 years old; proven impossible)—introduces pi.

Schoolchildren learn that pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, but it’s a deeply important number that turns up everywhere in mathematics. Most readers know that Newton’s laws precisely predict motions of two bodies, but few know that they flop with three. The Three-body Problem (330 years old, unsolved) continues to worry astronomers since it hints that gravitational forces among three or more bodies may be unstable, so the planets may eventually fly off.

Stewart’s imaginative, often-witty anecdotes, analogies and diagrams succeed in illuminating many but not all of some very difficult ideas. It will enchant math enthusiasts as well as general readers who pay close attention. (50 b/w illustrations)

Sheffer, Susannah Vanderbilt Univ. Press (224 pp.) $29.95 paperback | $19.99 e-book Mar. 15, 2013 978-0-8265-1911-5 978-0-8265-1912-2 e-book

An advocate for the rights of families of murder victims finds common ground with lawyers working to reverse death sentences.

Sheffer (co-author: In Dark Time: A Prisoner’s Struggle for Healing and Change, 2005, etc.) is an opponent of the death penalty. Capital defense attorneys are lawyers whose mission is to try to find ways to save the lives of those who have already been sentenced to death. They work in a branch of law that often seems to be stacked against their clients, especially those who were not able to find, or pay for, adequate defenders in earlier phases. Where movies often portray a race against the clock to stop an execution, the author stresses that the current reality is much more prosaic—and deadly. Briefs and petitions are written and filed and usually rejected. “There’ve been two or three victories,” says one of Sheffer’s interviewees, “but basically everything I’ve worked on, the clients, have, you know, not survived. It’s been really tough.” The lawyers who talked to her about their experiences have accumulated an average of nearly 20 years in the specialty. During that time, political concerns and legislative actions have made successful appeals against death sentences much more difficult. The lawyers take issue with the poor quality of the legal representation performed during the trial phases of the cases, as well as what one identified as a feeling that “prosecutors and courts would do anything they could…to assure that people were executed.” Sheffer portrays a cycle that the lawyers seem to repeat: Cases are taken, hopes for victory are evoked, trust is built with clients, and then the sentence is upheld. Disappointment and helplessness often go together in these accounts, especially as final decisions are handed down.

A searing account of rights and laws, crime and punishment.

DEFIANT BRIDES The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married Stuart, Nancy Rubin Beacon (264 pp.) $27.95 | $27.95 e-book | Apr. 9, 2013 978-0-8070-0117-2 978-0-8070-0118-9 e-book

Stuart (The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation, 2008, etc.) draws on her long experience writing about women and social history to show that strong women have always driven their husbands to perform prominent actions, both good and bad.

Peggy Shippen and Lucy Flucker were socialites who married two Revolutionary War heroes and immediately became parts of their careers. Flucker’s love for Henry Knox saw her following him throughout the war to whatever part of the country he was assigned. He was always able to find her and their children comfortable housing, where she hosted legendary dinner parties. Flucker’s correspondence with Henry shows a loving couple who longed for each other when separated—though it’s not terribly enticing reading. Nor are the tales of their extravagances and scrambles for means. The real story in this book is that of Benedict Arnold, his bravery and heroism, his permanent lameness suffered in battle, and his imperious demands for honor and recognition. It is that sense of entitlement that drove Arnold, with no little egging on by Shippen, to turn his coat. He felt that, since he was passed over for advancement,

VISIONS OF INFINITY The Great Mathematical Problems Stewart, Ian Basic (320 pp.) $26.99 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-0-465-02240-3

An aggressively unsimplified account of 14 great problems, emphasizing how mathematicians approached but did not always solve them.

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“Few of the supporting players come off smelling like roses, but Sullivan’s sensitive portrait of his main subject is a good start toward explaining and rehabilitating a lonely genius who was poorly understood in his lifetime.” from untouchable

he had little to lose by defection. Shippen’s close social ties to the British Maj. John André facilitated Arnold’s treachery. Stuart notes a number of incidents in which Arnold’s private use and sale of government equipment cast a distinct pall over his reputation. Too much of the book is then devoted to the Arnolds’ life in England, his attempts at making his fortune and her social successes.

Read this book for the portrait of Benedict Arnold.

The tales of the two Revolutionary-era women leave a great deal to be desired.

UNTOUCHABLE The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson Sullivan, Randall Grove (704 pp.) $35.00 | Nov. 13, 2012 978-0-8021-1962-9

When former Rolling Stone senior editor Sullivan (The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions, 2004, etc.) was commissioned to write about the circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson’s shocking death in 2009, the author quickly grasped that only a book would do the bizarre story justice.

Rather than write a standard rags-to-riches celebrity bio, which the Jackson family’s humble origins might actually have warranted, Sullivan begins in the months after Jackson’s 2003 trial for sexual abuse of a child. This, it turns out, is as good a starting point as any to look back on Jackson’s “strange life” (as the subtitle puts it), his career, his legal travails, his marriages and fatherhood, and more importantly, his fascinatingly enigmatic character. As he details Jackson’s late-life sojourns with his three children to Dubai, Ireland, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Sullivan also flashes back, in a couple of perfectly paced sections, to the child-molestation allegations in 1993 and 2003. He reveals a man who was not the pedophilic, transgendered, transracial freak the media thought he was, but a highly intelligent and sensitive perfectionist, more self-aware—and ashamed—of his surgically altered looks than the public ever knew. Sullivan’s choices do less justice to Jackson’s rise, his early life, and the development of his musical and dancing genius. While he admirably explicates the criminal case against the doctor who administered the potent pharmaceutical mix that killed Jackson, the author wastes too much time and detail on the soap-operatic legal battles of Jackson’s avaricious survivors and hangers-on.

Few of the supporting players come off smelling like roses, but Sullivan’s sensitive portrait of his main subject is a good start toward explaining and rehabilitating a lonely genius who was poorly understood in his lifetime.

MY BELOVED BRONTOSAURUS On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs

Switek, Brian Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (272 pp.) $26.00 | Apr. 16, 2013 978-0-374-13506-5

A dinosaur lover since childhood, science journalist Switek (Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature, 2010) chronicles his travels through North America visiting scientists, museums and fossil beds while delivering an enthusiastic account of the history, description, discoveries, ongoing controversies and inaccurate media obsession with these popular but extinct creatures.

The brontosaur itself illustrates the author’s theme. Paleontologists discarded the name a century ago (it’s been Apatosaurus since), but it remains the popular term for one of the largest, heaviest land animals in Earth’s history. Until the 1970s, experts portrayed it as a lumbering creature too massive to support its weight, perhaps living partly submerged in swamp water. Then experts decided they were wrong, and it became an agile creature of the plains; adolescents could walk on hind legs. Research into fossil bones and skin reveals that dinosaurs, although reptiles, were not reptilian (scaly, crawling, sluggish, coldblooded) but so energetic, fast-moving and fast-growing that it’s likely they were warmblooded. Scientists also changed their minds about the dull green lizard skin featured in images from the 19th century to Jurassic Park. Many covered their nakedness with colorful fuzz, the primitive ancestor of feathers, which have been turning up in dinosaur fossils since the 1990s.

Today, most readers are aware that a catastrophic mass extinction 65 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs. In another reassessment, paleontologists now believe that only “nonavian dinosaurs” vanished. One family had already evolved into birds.

Readers will forgive Switek’s detours into cuteness and bad jokes in exchange for a genuinely informative introduction to his favorite subject.

THE VATICAN DIARIES A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities, and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church

Thavis, John Viking (336 pp.) $27.95 | Feb. 21, 2013 978-0-670-02671-5

A seasoned reporter on the Vatican beat takes us for an irreverent and

revealing visit.

Frequently from the vantage of the reportorial fly on the wall, Thavis, retired Rome bureau chief of the Catholic News |

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Service, looks candidly at the goings-on at Saint Peter’s. His report, even without comment on the problematic events at the Vatican Bank, serves as a case study in management—and mismanagement—at a considerable worldwide enterprise with 400,000 priestly representatives. Though much history resonates throughout all church events, Thavis concentrates on the history he has witnessed firsthand, including the process of bell-ringing on the naming of a new pope and the work of various functionaries in the organization. We learn of the fight to save a unique ancient cemetery against the need for more underground parking and how the matter of the Legion of Christ was bungled when its founder was revealed as a thieving predator and why His Holiness didn’t deal with an antiSemitic bishop. Thavis also relates his time on the road with the pontiff and notes a futile visit by George W. Bush. He reviews the stalled drives to canonize the late John Paul or Pius XII, whose wartime role is still debated. Especially provocative are the chapters dealing with the mismanagement of diverse sex scandals and, finally, an appraisal of the opaque personality of Benedict, who seems, at least in public, detached, disengaged and often distracted. Like many in political life, the incumbent pope’s remarks are subject to considerable spin, “part of the great communications disconnect at the Vatican.” (Yet now His Holiness has acquired the Twitter handle “@pontifex.” How it’s used remains to be seen.)

Not only provocative, this report is illuminating and fully accessible to members of the faith and doubters alike.

BORN ON A MOUNTAINTOP On the Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier

Thompson, Bob Crown (368 pp.) $27.00 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-307-72089-4

For a year, former Washington Post feature writer Thompson chased the King

of the Wild Frontier.

In this evenhanded account, the author reports that it was his young daughter’s excited response to a Burl Ives’ recording of the Disney theme song that ignited his family’s interest in the historical David Crockett. And off he went—to sites in Tennessee, Alabama, Texas and Washington, D.C.—pursuing the frontiersman whose story, told in the three-part Disneyland series in the 1950s, caused the coonskin-cap phenomenon that spread rapidly across the country. The author sees no need for esoteric theories about its death: “It was a fad,” he writes. As Thompson tracked Crockett, he encountered local experts just about everywhere—people who were extraordinarily generous about driving him to remote locations and sharing their hardwon knowledge. He also interviewed some scholars, visited archives, browsed (and bought) in assorted gift shops, examined relics (the real, the risible) and attended festivities at the Alamo on the 175th anniversary of the battle. He found it wrenchingly 64

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difficult at times to chip away the thick carapace of fiction from Crockett’s life. Far less is known than many people would believe. Many stories, especially about the Alamo, elicit fiery emotions, especially in Texas. Thompson also read myriads of Crockett and Alamo books, examined the career of Fess Parker (Disney’s Crockett), and watched and analyzed the major (and some minor) movies, including those starring John Wayne and Billy Bob Thornton as Crockett. Neither Wayne nor Thornton, writes Thompson, showed us even a vaguely authentic Crockett.

Offers no surprising conclusions, but Thompson provides a well-researched, delightfully obsessive story, suitable for Crockett aficionados and neophytes.

A STORM TOO SOON A True Story of Disaster, Survival and an Incredible Rescue Tougias, Michael J. Scribner (256 pp.) $24.00 | Jan. 15, 2013 978-1-4516-8333-2

The gripping account of three extraordinary 2007 maritime rescues near the treacherous waters of the Gulf

Stream.

When JP de Lutz, Rudy Snel and Ben Tye set sail from Florida on the Sean Seamour II, they intended to cross the Atlantic to the Azores, then Gibraltar and finally, Saint-Tropez. The first 48 hours were better than anything the men could have ever expected, but after a few days, the weather suddenly began to change. Two otherwise small and harmless weather systems joined forces “to form one super cell that deepened so rapidly that no meteorologist could have predicted its power.” The winds, which forecasters had predicted would top out at 35 knots, increased to more than 80, and the sea became like “the hands of a raging giant” as it tossed and shook the trio’s 44-foot sailboat. The force of the waves, which sometimes reached 80 feet in height, gradually ripped the boat apart. Injured and in shock, the men escaped onto a small life raft while an emergency-radio beacon that got swept overboard miraculously sent out a distress call. The Coast Guard Command Center in Portsmouth, Va., received their signal, as well as those from two other ships nearby. A fourth ship went down before help could arrive. Teams of rescue-helicopter pilots and swimmers flew to the scenes of each disaster. By depicting the event from the perspective of both the rescued and the rescuers and focusing only on key moments and details, Tougias (Overboard!: A True Blue-water Odyssey of Disaster and Survival, 2010, etc.) creates a suspenseful, tautly rendered story that leaves readers breathless but well-satisfied.

Heart-pounding action for the avid armchair adventurer.

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“Williams’ work ably demonstrates how a single person can make a great difference.” from my name is jody williams

VERA GRAN The Accused

Tuszyńska, Agata Translated by Ruas, Charles Knopf (320 pp.) $28.95 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-307-26912-6

Highlights from the life of singer Vera Gran (1916–2007) give a deeper look into the cost of surviving the Holocaust and the struggles that haunt those who did.

Tuszyñska (Lost Landscapes: In Search of Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Jews of Poland, 1998) begins with Gran’s final years before returning to her subject’s childhood. The author follows the star through the shyness of youth and her first dance lessons to her decision to sing professionally. All of this is background to Gran’s eventual success as a nightclub singer in the Warsaw ghetto. Tuszyñska chronicles Gran’s wartime life—she escaped before the ghetto was closed off, then bribed officials to let her back in before finally escaping again a few years later—and discusses her visits with her subject. The author renders the World War II years in great detail, but the meat of the book lies in the accusation that Gran collaborated with the occupied forces in Warsaw and her vigorous, lifelong self-defense. The author fleshes this section out with witness accounts. With the constant changes in scene and the muddled nature of the accusations made, the book is challenging and can be difficult to follow. While Gran’s accompanist, Wladyslaw Szpilman, is mentioned in the subtitle and brought up frequently throughout the narrative, his role in the book is actually quite small and ill-defined. It’s as though Gran decided he was responsible for her fate, so Tuszyñska felt the need to weave him into the story regardless of evidence. The author clearly has unanswered questions about their relationship, but his somewhat central role in the story makes little sense.

A great choice for Gran devotees or World War II enthusiasts, but too limited in scope for general readers.

MY NAME IS JODY WILLIAMS A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize

Williams, Jody Univ. of California (256 pp.) $29.95 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-0-520-27025-1

A crusader for the worldwide ban on landmines tells her amazing, unlikely journey to winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

Out of a regular Everywoman’s life, Vermont native Williams emerged as an effective activist, both in working for the democratic movement in Central America during the 1980s and spearheading the international push for the ban on landmines in the ’90s. The author’s early years were marked by her |

father’s struggles to find steady work as a salesman and her older brother Steve’s deafness and undiagnosed mental illness.

Steve grew increasingly violent and eventually had to be hospitalized, a source of guilt and sadness for Williams. Nonetheless, she managed to get through the University of Vermont during the turbulent late-1960s, and she became increasingly drawn to social upheaval, like the debates over the Vietnam War and racism. Teaching English in Mexico opened her eyes to the enormous disparity in wealth between the rich and poor.

After relocating to Washington, D.C., she began to raise awareness about the harmful U.S. intervention in the politics of El Salvador and Nicaragua. From an unhappy stint at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, with a focus on Latin America, she longed to get into the trenches and help people, not just theorize about them. In 1991, humanitarian leaders and veterans tapped Williams to build a political movement to ban landmines, which were an active peril in places like Cambodia long after the wars were over. Galvanizing the help of NGOs around the globe and leaders like Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, she organized the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, meeting with officials and speaking at international conferences, all of which culminated in a Mine Ban Treaty hammered out in 1996.

Williams’ work ably demonstrates how a single person can make a great difference. (28 b/w photos)

FIVE MYTHS ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Wilson, Ward Houghton Mifflin (208 pp.) $22.00 | Jan. 15, 2013 978-0-547-85787-9

A compelling, plainspoken piece of advocacy in which the author maintains that everything we think we know about nuclear weapons is wrong.

Though Wilson stops just short of making the case for immediate and unilateral nuclear disarmament, he builds a methodical, step-by-step argument that the very notion of such weapons as a deterrent is fallacious, based on a misunderstanding of when and why Japan decided to surrender in the wake of the bombing of Hiroshima. What makes his case so convincing (though not all will be convinced) is that he makes it not in the spirit of Utopian idealism, but fact-facing pragmatism. He argues that most of the support for nuclear weaponry is in fact irrational, based on the misconception that mankind has no control over the future—that, having opened the Pandora’s box of nuclear technology, we live in fear of apocalypse. The fallacy begins with the bombing of Japan, where “the danger is that we have overinflated their value [of nuclear weapons] by misinterpreting that one event.” The threat of Russian invasion, not the nuclear bombing, forced Japan’s hand—“the atomic bomb swept all mistakes and misjudgments under the rug.” If it didn’t end a war, as generally perceived, neither has it stood as a deterrent, with Wilson citing the Cuban missile crisis kirkus.com

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“Nothing beats good hard data to debunk myths, and Zuk offers plenty.” from paleofantasy

PALEOFANTASY What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

as a sign of recklessness that actually pushed us closer to war.

Yet even if one agrees with every one of his points, the author admits that “I am not sure what can and should be done with nuclear weapons.” He offers the plea that “the wisest scholars need to be enlisted to go back over the problem.”

A provocative reframing of a problem that still awaits a solution.

Zuk, Marlene Norton (304 pp.) $27.95 | Mar. 18, 2013 978-0-393-08137-4

BIG WEEK Six Days that Changed the Course of World War II

Zuk (Univ. of California, Riverside; Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World, 2011, etc.) takes on those who say we are ill-suited to modern life because we are trapped in our Stone Age bodies.

That’s pure “paleofantasy,” writes the author, and a denial of evolution. Humans emerged in the Pleistocene, beginning 1 million years ago, and have continued to evolve since. Zuk cites dozens of studies of changes in gene frequencies (the mark of evolution) when our genomes are compared with ancient DNA. One classic example is the ability of many adults to digest milk, thanks to the retention of a working lactase enzyme. Prior to the birth of agriculture and the domestication of animals—only a few thousand years ago—the lactase gene was turned off in early childhood. Adaptations to living at high altitudes are also recent, and genetic analyses show that Andean dwellers accomplish it differently than Tibetans.

These and countless other examples attest to the continued interactions of our species and cultures with nature and the environment, with consequences that affect diet, disease risk/resistance and lifestyles. So it makes no sense that we should eat the “paleo” diet of meat and root vegetables like hunter-gatherers, run barefoot (as in pursuit of game) or take as models of sex behavior what our primate friends do. Zuk is particularly sharp in this area, pointing to how diverse sexual behavior is for chimps, bonobos, gorillas, gibbons and orangutans. The mistake that the back-to-paleo folks make is the belief that human evolution stopped at some point thousands of years ago. Zuk explains that evolution (in all organisms) can and does happen by genetic drift (an isolated group may, over time, concentrate particular genes), by gene inflow (when new groups mix with an existing group), by mutation (gene errors) and by natural selection, which looks at traits associated with greater reproductive success.

Nothing beats good hard data to debunk myths, and Zuk offers plenty.

Yenne, Bill Berkley (320 pp.) $26.95 | Dec. 31, 2012 978-0-425-25575-9

Military and aviation historian Yenne (U.S. Guided Missiles, 2012, etc.) documents the events of the week beginning February 20th, 1944, during which Nazi Germany’s aircraft industry and air defenses were destroyed, contributing to the preparation for the D-Day invasion.

The author provides a day-by-day account of what took place as German industrial facilities were targeted for attack.

Yenne skillfully situates the action, pulling together various threads. He summarizes briefly the history of strategic bombing from its origins in Italy and Russia during World War I, and he highlights the recruitment and deployment of the intelligence teams that profiled the German economy and war machine to identify bottlenecks and target them to be destroyed. Yenne examines the creation and development of the many aircraft armadas that took to the skies that February from their bases in eastern England. This is an amazing story in which planning and organization—such as the ever-increasing flow of materiel into the U.K.—combined perfectly with ingenuity and luck (the weather in that February week was ideal but almost unprecedented). Yenne then takes up the effectiveness of the America’s daytime bombing campaign as both the number of bombers and the range of their fighter escorts increased. Ultimately, the setbacks of late 1943, when losses of bombers and flight crews to German air defense forces became almost unsustainable, were reversed. Yenne also shows how the bombing campaign finally helped break the back of Hitler’s war economy.

Well-written and fast-paced, this will be compelling to specialists and general readers alike.

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MILLIONS, BILLIONS, & TRILLIONS Understanding Big Numbers

These titles earned the Kirkus Star:

DIRTY GERT by Tedd Arnold...........................................................p. 68

Adler, David A. Illus. by Miller, Edward Holiday House (32 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-0-8234-2403-0

THE SIN EATER’S CONFESSION by Ilsa J. Bick............................p. 69 HAVE YOU SEEN MY NEW BLUE SOCKS? by Eve Bunting ; illus. by Sergio Ruzzier..................................................................... p. 71 ETIQUETTE & ESPIONAGE by Gail Carriger................................ p. 72 HOMELAND by Cory Doctorow...................................................... p. 74 NIGHT SKY WHEEL RIDE by Sheree Fitch; illus. by Yayo.............. p. 76 RED RIVER STALLION by Troon Harrison..................................... p. 79 A DASH OF MAGIC by Kathryn Littlewood.................................. p. 83 MY FATHER’S ARMS ARE A BOAT by Stein Erik Lunde; illus. by Øyvind Torseter; trans. by Kari Dickson............................ p. 83 ODETTE’S SECRETS by Maryann Macdonald............................... p. 85 REQUIEM by Lauren Oliver............................................................p. 89 WAR DOGS by Kathryn Selbert...................................................... p. 93 OH SO TINY BUNNY by David Kirk..............................................p. 96 JUNIOR ASTRONAUT by Crank Publishing Ltd, Immediate Media Company............................................................. p. 97 RITA THE LIZARD by Irene Blasco Grau......................................... p. 97

Adler endeavors to get a grip on the slipperiness of big numbers.

Adler, along with Miller and his cut-out–style, cartoony artwork, has delivered on all manner of math, to the delight of those who turn into deer-in-the-headlights when confronted with numbers (Perimeter, Area, and Volume, 2012, etc.). Here they take a stab at wrapping young heads around millions and billions and beyond.

The book starts out with “One million is a lot. It’s one thousand thousands,” but words aren’t enough. You have got to visualize. A million is the number of sugar granules in a quarter-cup measure.

Spill them out on a piece of construction paper and take a gander.

One million. They try to keep the mood upbeat, counting sundaes (with a billion dollars, “[a]t five dollars a sundae, you could buy one thousand sundaes every day for more than five hundred years”) or birthday parties—but they throw in the towel on a grace note and a reprieve: “You couldn’t count to a trillion.” There are also a couple of bracingly sly jabs: “Someone with one billion dollars could give away ten million dollars every year for one hundred years.”

Listen up, you 1 percent. An abbreviated tour from quadrillion to sextillion is followed by the deflating news that “names for large numbers are not the same everywhere. In some parts of the world, what we call a billion is called a milliard,” but by now we have come to suspect these big numbers are pretty crazy creatures.

Adler anchors great numbers in cool facts, but once past a billion, the zeroes are still helplessly dizzying. (Informational picture book. 6-10)

THE GIANT BEAR An Inuit Folktale

NIGHT SKY WHEEL RIDE

Fitch, Sheree Illus. by Yayo Tradewind Books (32 pp.) $16.95 Feb. 15, 2013 978-1-896580-67-8

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Angutinngurniq, Jose Illus. by Widermann, Eva Inhabit Media (32 pp.) $13.95 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-92709-503-4 An authentic tale from Nunavut, the Canadian Arctic territory.

Inuit elder Angutinngurniq shares his grandfather’s story of the nanurluk, a giant mythological polar bear. According to the kirkus.com

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introduction, giants once roamed the Arctic and grappled with these bears. When those extraordinary beings disappeared, the nanurluit (plural for nanurluk) remained. This tale of a resourceful, unnamed hunter is told plainly and directly. Using his wits to make the bear’s aglu (breathing hole in the ice) smaller, the hunter accomplishes his plan to lure the bear from the sea. The realistic paintings contrast the blue-and-white landscapes and the dark blue underwater scenes with the warm tones of the traditionally dressed Inuit man and his wife. When the hunter stabs the bear as the animal struggles to break out of its breathing hole, red explodes across the ice and the page, creating a strong image of bloody struggle. The hunter knows he cannot kill the beast outright, but he fools the beast into walking in a weakened condition, leading to its death and much meat. The publisher, an Inuit-owned independent from Nunavut, makes it their mission to preserve and promote the traditional lore of northern Canada.

Though more violent than much picture-book fare, this streamlined story effectively conveys the way in which the Inuit people historically understood their environment and acts as a valuable window into the culture. (Picture book/ folktale. 5-8)

DIRTY GERT

Arnold, Tedd Illus. by Arnold, Tedd Holiday House (40 pp.) $16.95 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-0-8234-2404-7 A sweet little ragamuffin, by nature and nurture, is drawn to dirt.

Gert likes dirt. Dirt is, elementarily, her thing. Gert likes dirt to the point of geophagy, or as Arnold tenderly puts it, she is a “soil internalizer.” Nothing wrong with that. Cultures have been scarfing dirt since the dawn. Lots of minerals. Worms idolize Gert, of course. As she is just a toddler, we understand that dirt is in her nature. As for nurture: “Mom and Dad did not get mad. / They simply supervised her.” The text arrives in somewhat furtive couplets, spinning out rhymes to “-izer” with effortless abandon. It’s as delightful as Arnold’s bold, comical artwork, which is full of brimming, grimy presence. Then comes the rain, and Gert puts down roots; “Out came the sun. Oh, wow! What FUN! / It photosynthesized her!” She sprouts leaves, too. The local news arrives to see what Gert can do for them, and so do lawyers and botanists and Hollywood. Gert begins to wilt under all the attention. Enter her parents to shoo away all the pests and make sure Gert gets the loam she needs, there at the dinner table, her feet nestled in a flower pot. A wonderful sense of protectiveness and appreciation pervades this story, speaking directly to the marvels that life has in store.

Vegans, locavores, farm-to-table enthusiasts, take note—Gert is as organic as they come and a genuine delectation, worms and all. (Picture book. 4-8)

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MONSTERS LOVE COLORS

Austin, Mike Illus. by Austin, Mike Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $14.99 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-06-212594-1

Dynamic monsters cavort and shriek and play with color.

These monsters have googly eyes, big cartoon grins and unthreateningly rounded bodies. At the beginning, some are a single primary color, while others are smaller and gray. One red monster, one yellow monster and one blue monster extol the virtues of their own colors with jubilant chantability if not strict logic: “Red is the color of ROAR! and SNORE! and more! more!

MORE!”; “Yellow is the color of PROWL! and HOWL! and GROWL! GROWL! GROWL!”; “Blue is the color of Scribble and Dribble and Nibble Nibble Nibble.” Other verses are more hit-or-miss—for example, one page tries to rhyme “splash” with “squash,” which may cause a stumble for adults reading aloud.

However, all the monsters gyrate and boogie with exuberance, and their mixing of colors has exciting results. The small gray monsters become secondary colors, and one lucky little fellow who requests “SUPER tropical MEGA monster RAINBOW swirl with raspberry on TOP!” gets multicolored stripes and a rainbow parade to lead. Austin’s squiggly, untamed swirls of crayon, pencil and ink and the high energy in his casual style (complete with silliness: “Hey! Don’t eat your crayons, silly monster!”) may coax even the bounciest little monsters to sit down for storytime—and run for the crayons and poster paper afterwards.

Groovy. (Picture book. 2-5)

THE MARKET BOWL

Averbeck, Jim Illus. by Averbeck, Jim Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $16.95 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-58089-368-8 978-1-60734-591-6 e-book Yoyo’s mother says that no fair price for bitterleaf stew can be refused; to do so risks angering Brother Coin, the Great Spirit of the Market.

After rushing her preparations, the Cameroonian girl turns down a customer who offers ten-ten say-fah for her poor concoction (her mother says it’s fit only for the goats), instead of the usual fifty-fifty paid for Mama Cécile’s excellent stew. Their luck sours, and Yoyo decides that she must appease Brother Coin. When she does so, she witnesses a scary sight. The god, a caricature of a greedy man, refuses his blessing to a beseeching merchant and makes him disappear. Yoyo then uses her market bowl to make a perfect portion of bitterleaf stew. Brother Coin laps up the dish after making a hurried blessing only at the girl’s insistence. In a confusing ending, the Great Spirit says he still will not grant wishes, but gives Yoyo back her special bowl, used for collecting

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“Bick’s compelling tale manages to be a blistering confessional and a page-turning whodunit (or maybe what-really-happened) all in one.” from the sin-eater’s confession

coins at their stall. The girl miraculously arrives at home, and mother and daughter now prosper due to Yoyo’s change of character. The slightly satiric edge of the images, combining deeply colored acrylic paintings with collage in Photoshop, creates a contemporary look for this original tale. Adapted recipe included.

Although the text lacks the heft of traditional folklore, the author/illustrator draws on his Peace Corps background to cook up a cautionary, but tasty look at life in Cameroon. (Picture book. 6-8)

NOT YOUR TYPICAL DRAGON

Bar-el, Dan Illus. by Bowers, Tim Viking (40 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 7, 2013 978-0-670-01402-6

Accepting people for who they are is the gentle message of Bar-el’s latest, which readers may find reminiscent, if not duplicative, of the film How to Train Your Dragon.

Crispin Blaze, scion of a long line of fire-breathing dragons, is on the cusp of his seventh birthday, when he will finally come into his fiery powers. But when asked to light his birthday candles, he breathes whipped cream instead. While his younger sister is pleased, his parents are not—they want him fixed. At the doctor’s, he breathes Band-Aids; at fire-breathing practice, marshmallows (to go with all the flaming logs his friends have lit). Discouraged and unaccepted, Crispin runs away to a cave, where he meets a young knight who understands his plight and tries to help. But spicy foods fail to ignite Crispin’s fire, as do thinking mean thoughts and relaxation techniques. Homesick by nightfall, Crispin is escorted back to his parents by Sir George—at which point, a showdown between their fathers might have had a very unhappy ending but for Crispin’s splendid talent of breathing exactly what is needed. Bowers’ acrylic dragons are delightfully nonscary, and readers will be able to tell their thoughts and feelings with ease; Crispin’s dejected slouch as he runs away from home, toting a heavy suitcase, says it all, as do his befuddled expressions at his nonstandard eruptions.

Share this with your favorite atypical kids. (Picture book. 3-7)

farm. High school senior Ben steps up to help. His mother hopes it’ll give him fodder for his Yale admissions essay; Ben, unsure he wants to follow the path she’s laid out for him, just likes helping the stern Mr. and Mrs. Lange and their 15-year-old son, Jimmy.

When Jimmy wins a national photography contest with sensual photographs of his own father and Ben (both taken without permission), rumors that the baby-faced Jimmy is gay jump into overdrive—and start circulating about Ben, who then distances himself from Jimmy. When Ben witnesses a horrific crime and does nothing, his life spins out of control; he begins to doubt himself, his senses, his motives…even his connection to reality.

Bick’s compelling tale manages to be a blistering confessional and a page-turning whodunit (or maybe what-really-happened) all in one. Ben’s thoughts on sexuality, the dangers of rumor, individual freedom and personal responsibility, among other topics, will resonate with teens, who won’t mind the lack of a tidy end.

Readers won’t be able to look away even if they find they don’t much like—or trust—Ben. (Fiction. 14 & up)

THE SIN-EATER’S CONFESSION

Bick, Ilsa J. Carolrhoda Lab (296 pp.) $17.95 | $12.95 e-book | Mar. 1, 2013 978-0-7613-5687-5 978-1-4677-0948-4 e-book Stationed in Afghanistan, medic Ben spends a long day drafting a detailed confession about the tragedy that threw his life off course two years earlier.

When the tiny town of Merit, Wis., loses its football hero to a drunk-driving accident, his family needs help on their dairy |

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“Best of all, it’s great to have a plus-sized heroine—with a boyfriend!” from real mermaids don’t need high heels

THE FRAZZLE FAMILY FINDS A WAY

VIOLET MACKEREL’S REMARKABLE RECOVERY

Bonwill, Ann Illus. by Gammell, Stephen Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | Mar. 15, 2013 978-0-8234-2405-4

A family with severe short-term memory issues discovers a coping strategy at last in this mildly farcical outing.

Given their tendency to leave home sans trousers or umbrellas, to forget the grocery list—even, in the dog’s case, to forget where the bones are buried—the Frazzles invite Aunt Rosemary in to organize their lives. Unfortunately, even Rosemary’s blizzard of notes, schedules and strings on fingers fails to work. Her bathtub caterwauling, however, inspires young Annie Frazzle to turn to-do lists into jingles: “Apples, lettuce, bread, and beets, / Chicken, carrots, chocolate treats, / Milk and cheese and one thing more, / Don’t leave Grandpa at the store!” Problem solved. Gammell’s illustrations add a typical air of barely controlled chaos. Disheveled figures sporting confused expressions beneath mops of flyaway hair float through paint-splashed scenes of riotous domestic clutter.

Crisis management for sure, but resolutely low key and capped by the arrival of a luscious (if, Gammell-style, decrepit) birthday cake. (Picture book. 5-7)

REAL MERMAIDS DON’T NEED HIGH HEELS

Boudreau, Hélène Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (240 pp.) $6.99 paperback | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-4022-6458-0 Series: Real Mermaids, 2

The adventures of a part-time mermaid continue with more comedy and easy but suspenseful action.

Jade has triumphantly escaped her hated middle school and entered glorious high school, where she hopes finally to have a normal teenage life. She already has a boyfriend of sorts, Luke, although she’s too shy to ask him to the upcoming girls’-choice dance. She’s excited to be in high school and determined to do better academically than she did in middle school. However, it turns out that Jade isn’t the only part-time merperson in her town of Port Toulouse. A new girl, Serena, a refugee from the “freshies”—merpeople imprisoned in the nearby lake—will be attending school, and Jade’s assigned to team up with her and protect her. Actually, Port Toulouse seems to be riddled with secret merpeople, and danger looms for them all at the hands of the scheming Mermish Council. Boudreau keeps tone and action light as foam, solving conundrums with happy coincidences. An underwater hockey game adds spice, as do some friendship difficulties, also easily solved. Mermish “speech,” which humans can’t hear, is printed in italics. Best of all, it’s great to have a plus-sized heroine—with a boyfriend!

Frothy fun. (Paranormal adventure. 9-13) 70

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Branford, Anna Illus. by Allen, Elanna Atheneum (128 pp.) $14.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-4424-3588-9 Series: Violet Mackerel, 2

Violet Mackerel makes a new friend while waiting for her tonsillectomy and cements that friendship by singing on the radio.

The young star of Violet Mackerel’s Brilliant Plot (2012) returns with a sore throat. Dr. Singh advises an operation, cautioning that “some people find that their voices change a little bit after they have their tonsils out.” Violet spins this into a fantasy of becoming an opera singer, which she shares with a friendly woman she meets in the hospital waiting room. Recovering afterward, she worries that they might not find each other to have their promised post-recovery tea, but through a series of coincidences and her own new verses to “My Favorite Things,” she does. Like its predecessor, this early chapter book focuses on small moments and small things—the purple lozenge Violet gets from Dr. Singh and passes on to Iris Macdonald, the butterflies that feel more like rhinoceroses in their stomachs, the many possible flavors of ice cream for the recovery period.

The large coincidence in the end reminds readers that worlds are small, satisfyingly concluding another volume in a successful Australian series. Allen’s grayscale drawings (not seen in final form) both support and add appeal.

This agreeable account should attract new Violet Mackerel followers. (Fiction. 5-9)

I’M IN LOVE WITH A BIG BLUE FROG

Braunstein, Leslie Illus. by Brunet, Joshua S. Imagine Publishing (28 pp.) $17.95 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-936140-37-4 978-1-60734-663-0 e-book

Braunstein’s song about racial tolerance comes to 21st-century readers in this picture book, which would not be complete without the enclosed CD recording by Peter, Paul and Mary.

Brunet’s zany, realistic illustrations vividly portray both the love between the freckled redhead and the tall, lanky blue Dr. Phrog (he has a Ph.D.) and the discrimination they face as a result of their “interracial” relationship despite the frog’s solid background, education and family. Both humans and animals fill the huge, full-bleed spreads, in a town that is obviously populated by both, but in no other context do readers see the species mixing. An elephant shields its calf ’s eyes from the sight of the two sipping from one glass at the soda fountain while the human soda jerk looks on disapprovingly; homogeneous family groups play at the playground (and on the next page,

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the narrator imagines her fabulous frog/human children). The final illustration departs from this hostility, showing the couple handing out frog-shaped ice-cream pops to the locals, who sport “I heart Phrog” shirts and buttons. While this is certainly a positive development, readers will wonder exactly how the turnaround happened. A “Performers’ Note” explains the song’s historical background.

An interesting take on discrimination and acceptance that will introduce young readers to the sound of an influential musical group. (illustrator’s note, three-song CD) (Picture book. 4-10)

OPEN VERY CAREFULLY A Book with Bite

Bromley, Nick Illus. by O’Byrne, Nicola Nosy Crow/Candlewick (32 pp.) $15.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-7636-6163-2

A crocodile doesn’t belong in “The Ugly Duckling”! But how to get it out?

A scribble over Hans Christian Andersen’s name on the title page is only the first sign that the classic tale’s been hijacked. A few page turns later, the cozy scenes of ducklings have been replaced by a smiling croc, who gleefully proceeds to chow down on favorite letters (“St p! Mr. Cr c dile!”) and even sentences. Maybe shaking the book or pulling out that ever-handy purple crayon to draw a tutu on him will make him leave? A little red-capped gray cygnet acts as narrator, guiding readers through the story. Along with providing interactive opportunities, Bromley and O’Byrne dial down the danger—“He might bite your finger or scratch your nose! Crocodiles like to do that”—and at last let their comical croc escape by chewing a hole (die cut into the last page and back cover) in the last page. But: “Where do you think he’ll turn up next?”

A blandly nonthreatening alternative to Emily Gravett’s Wolves (2006) and like encounters with metafictional characters. (Picture book. 5-7)

UNDERTOWN

Bukiet, Melvin Jules Amulet/Abrams (304 pp.) $16.95 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-1-4197-0589-2 Two suburban teens ride a sailboat into Manhattan’s storm drains and meet quirky residents aplenty in this wittierthan-thou crossover effort.

Suddenly and uncomfortably thrown into one another’s company by their widowed parents’ romance, Timothy and Jessamyn express their displeasure with a prank. It backfires, sending them rolling down a Washington Heights street aboard the inaccurately named X-tra Large into a hole opened at a construction site. |

Disturbed but willing to go with the flow (so to speak), the two contrive to elude a massive police search, escape the clutches of the ruthless queen of a gang of subterranean art thieves and ultimately (by converting a stolen Turner canvas into a sail) survive the disastrous effects of a rainstorm. Unsurprisingly, they also bond. Bukiet chucks in such New York types as a stunningly gifted young graffiti artist and a seen-it-all police captain, along with the obligatory mentions of alligators, egg creams and dog-sized rats. He also pauses frequently for touristic disquisitions on Manhattan’s topography and the sights beneath which his protagonists are passing. Mannered references to, for instance, the flood’s “chthonic fury” (“A million drops are more than the sum of their splatters. They are voluptuous and deadly”) and analytical remarks on such topics as the craft of writing or art and money as social constructs will play better to older audiences.

Though classically modeled, this journey tale founders.

(Fantasy. 11-13)

HAVE YOU SEEN MY NEW BLUE SOCKS?

Bunting, Eve Illus. by Ruzzier, Sergio Clarion (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-547-75267-9

Where, oh where are Duck’s new blue socks?

Duck is quite sad over the loss of his new blue socks. “I know I put them somewhere near. / How could they simply disappear?” He searches his big box to no avail. He asks his friend Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox hasn’t seen them, but he suggests rifling the big box and asking the ox. The ox hasn’t seen them either, but he did see some socks on the rocks by the lake. Unfortunately, “[t]hese are socks, but they’re not new. / They’re more like purple, not like blue.” Duck asks the peacocks if they’ve seen his socks, telling them everywhere he’s looked and everyone he’s asked…and the youngest peacock notices “…a touch of blue / underneath your laced-up shoe!” Bunting and Ruzzier (Tweak Tweak, 2011) reteam with excellent results. Bunting’s lyrical rhyming, repeating text is only a few large words from earlyreader territory: “I’m trying not to be depressed. / Without my socks I feel undressed.” Storytime audiences will enjoy Duck’s sock hunt, and lapsitters with sharp eyes can spot the gradual unraveling reveal of the new blue socks’ location in Ruzzier’s broad, cartoon watercolors.

A great addition to the literature on ducks…or socks!

(Picture book. 2-6)

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“It’s higher on silliness and lower on romance than we have come to expect for this age range, but that just leaves more room for exploding wicker chickens.” from etiquette & espionage

ETIQUETTE & ESPIONAGE

Carriger, Gail Little, Brown (320 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-316-19008-4 Series: Finishing School, 1 Finishing school is ever so interesting when you’re learning how to poison your dinner guests with the mutton chops.

Sophronia, infamous in her family for disassembling dumbwaiters and falling into custard, is horrified when she is sent to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. But school isn’t the dreadfully boring disaster Sophronia anticipates. In the academy—a collection of interlaced dirigibles—the girls learn music and intelligence gathering, cooking and defense against vampires, dance and rudimentary seduction. Along with her new chum Dimity, Sophronia learns the principles of fundamental espionage, discovering the academy’s own secrets along the way. She assembles a lovable gang of misfits (an engine-room “sootie” and urchin mechanical whiz, a student from the nearby evil-genius academy and a steam-powered dog named Bumbersnoot) to assist her on a delightfully madcap espionage adventure. This genre-blender will introduce fans of Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls and Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ The Squad to a world of mechanical maids and flying machines, while bringing a spyschool romp to readers of the weightier worlds of Cassandra Clare and Scott Westerfeld. It’s higher on silliness and lower on romance than we have come to expect for this age range, but that just leaves more room for exploding wicker chickens.

As Dimity says, “Who doesn’t want an exploding wicker chicken?” (Steampunk. 11-15)

CLONEWARD BOUND

Castle, M.E. Egmont USA (272 pp.) $15.99 | $15.99 e-book | Feb. 12, 2013 978-1-60684-233-1 978-1-60684-405-2 e-book Series: The Clone Chronicles, 2 Fisher Bas and his clone, Two, are back for more action-packed fun.

Though surviving the explosion at TechX Industries and revealing Dr. X’s evil plans have made Fisher an overnight celebrity at Wompalog Middle School (Popular Clone, 2012), life is still pretty complicated for the seventh-grader. When Fisher learns that Two is not only alive and well, but living the high life in Los Angeles, he must figure out how to reel his clone in before he inadvertently exposes their genetic secret. A surprise class trip brings Fisher to the City of Angels, where he teams up with his classmate Amanda Cantrell to find Two and bring him back to Palo Alto before it’s too late. Like a funny James Bond for the middle 72

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school set, the close third-person narrative is rife with humor, adventure, gadgetry and even a hint of romance. Fans of the series and new readers alike will eagerly turn the pages as Fisher and Amanda elude school chaperones and government agents, making their way from studio sound stages to the Hollywood Bowl in search of Two. The heart of the story, however, is what makes this book special, and it resides with Fisher, who struggles mightily with his own sense of self-worth when faced with a mirror image of himself that seems to have it all.

A successful balance of fizz and substance. (Fantasy. 9-12)

DUALED

Chapman, Elsie Random House (304 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | PLB $19.99 Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-307-93154-2 978-0-307-97536-2 e-book 978-0-375-97093-1 PLB Violent teen dystopias are nothing new, but this debut, in which every character is or soon will be a killer, kicks it up

a notch.

Ever since a vaccine gone wrong rendered the population sterile, humans have been bioengineered. In the well-fortified city-state of Kersh, the ruling Board creates a genetic double (Alt) for every newborn; they are raised in separate families.

Sometime between the ages of 10 and 20, each Alt is “assigned” without notice to kill the other within 30 days; if neither succeeds, the Board terminates both. (The rationale—breeding a population of soldiers to repel invasion—makes little sense.)

Successful killers (“completes”) move on guilt-free to better food, schools, marriages and careers. When their friend Chord gets his assignment, Luc’s efforts to keep his sister, West, from involving herself end disastrously. Remorseful, West takes up contract killing. Fighting back, overthrowing the Board or sabotaging the system never occur to her, even as a fantasy. A few characters condemn class privilege (rich Alts can afford better training and hired killers) but rebel, puzzlingly, by becoming hired killers themselves. No one finds the price of safety too high to accept.

Readers untroubled by brutal, compassion-free violence will find plenty to admire in Chapman’s gamer pacing, clever suspense—here, stalking is a two-way street—and fast-mounting body count. (Dystopian adventure. 12 & up)

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PYTHON

BLAZE (OR LOVE IN THE TIME OF SUPERVILLAINS)

Cheng, Christopher Illus. by Jackson, Mark Candlewick (32 pp.) $15.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-7636-6396-4

Crompton, Laurie Boyle Sourcebooks Fire (320 pp.) $8.99 paperback | Feb. 1, 2012 978-1-4022-7343-8

A strangely uninformative look at a python’s life and life cycle.

A python (identified in the closing note as an Australian diamond python) slithers from shelter to bask in the sun, shed her skin and nab a rat (after missing a bird). Suddenly eggs appear, as if from nowhere. The python conscientiously incubates them until they begin to hatch, then abruptly departs to let her offspring “start their own lives of smelling, resting, watching… and waiting.” The earnest narrative is accompanied on each spread by additional details in an insufficiently different typeface. Cheng slides past any direct mention of death (“When the rat can no longer breathe, dinner is ready”), drops in a vague reference to unidentified egg “predators” and presents at best a sketchy overview of snake anatomy. Readers wondering how pythons get around, how those eggs came to be fertilized or laid, and like questions will find no answers here—either in the text or in Jackson’s muddy, indistinct painted illustrations.

Not even the relatively lengthy afterword can fill all the holes in this superficial, less-than-compelling profile.

(Informational picture book. 6-8)

MAISY LEARNS TO SWIM

Cousins, Lucy Illus. by Cousins, Lucy Candlewick (32 pp.) $12.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-7636-6480-0

Take the plunge with Maisy and her friends as they splash and wade through their first swimming lesson.

Part of the Maisy First Experiences series, this title helps familiarize young ones with the preparations and activities common to most swimming instruction. First Maisy must collect everything she needs: bathing suit, towel and goggles. She joins Eddie and Tallulah for the adventure. Eddie is brave and jumps right in, but Maisy and Tallulah dip their “toes in first. Ooh, it’s freeeezing!” After a “swish-swash [and] splish-splash,” the trio meets their hippo teacher, Poppy. They learn to kick, float and blow bubbles. Soon the fun is over, and it is time for the lesson to end. Maisy climbs up the ladder and “feels shivery out of the water, so she wraps herself up in a fluffy towel.” After a quick shower and change into her clothes, Maisy is ready to meet her friends for a snack. Over apple juice and milk, a smiling Maisy looks forward to the next lesson. All is depicted in bright gouache illustrations done in Cousins’ signature style by, presumably, the film studio responsible for animating the Maisy franchise.

Young readers will appreciate this brief introduction to what occurs in most beginning aquatic lessons for children—sans any tears and fears. (Picture book. 2-4) |

Geeky girl with absent father and quirky hobby meets unsuitable boy, then realizes Mr. Right has been under her nose all along.

Blaze’s self-centered father, a caricature, left the family to become an actor, leaving her with only her name (from Ghost Rider’s Johnny Blaze) and a love for classic Marvel Comics. Now, Blaze spends her time ferrying her 13-yearold brother Josh and his farting, breast-ogling, gay-joke–making friends to and from soccer practice. She has a crush on Mark, Josh’s soccer coach, but their relationship fails to progress until Blaze’s friend snaps a picture of Blaze trying on lingerie and sends it to Mark’s phone. After a confusing and pressure-filled sexual encounter and Mark’s subsequent brushoff, Mark posts the half-naked photo on clunkily named Facebook stand-in FriendsPlace, and it goes viral. The resultant bullying is harsh but believable, and it’s satisfying to see Blaze channeling her hurt and anger into making comics and redecorating her Superturd of a minivan. Less impressive, however, are some of Blaze’s asides to the reader (“Stuart is one of only three black students in our school....I feel somewhat hip and urban having him here at my house”) and the frequent subtle digs at girls being highmaintenance, stalkers, actual sluts and brainwashing feminists.

Timely subject matter and an adequate romance, but nothing super. (Fiction. 12-16)

PINCH AND DASH AND THE TERRIBLE COUCH

Daley, Michael J. Illus. by Yezerski, Thomas F. Charlesbridge (48 pp.) $12.95 | $5.95 paperback | $6.99 e-book Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-58089-379-4 978-1-58089-380-0 paperback 978-1-60734-592-3 e-book Series: Pinch and Dash An oversized couch with “daring dashes of red” causes a conundrum for understated Pinch. Will good friend Dash find a way to make it work?

Daley and Yezerski pair up again (Pinch and Dash Make Soup, 2012) for a slice-of-life story told in six brief chapters. They ably move the plot along while watercolor-and-ink illustrations inject humor into this odd-couple approach to dealing with a dilemma.

Pinch is put out that Aunt Hasty has sent him her couch for safekeeping after moving to a tiny apartment. This huge piece of furniture is too big and too bright for Pinch’s quiet aesthetic. His home has blue curtains with “pleasing pinches of orange” and a

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“snug chair.” Gruff movers Push and Shove just want to get the job done. They leave the sofa in the middle of Pinch’s house after pushing and shoving everything else out of the way. In comes Dash to help rearrange. After more futile pushing and shoving, Pinch is still not happy. Dash, however, finds the couch’s cushions “just right” and settles in for a snooze. Hot and frustrated, Pinch opens his windows and notices the breeze blowing Dash’s curtains on the other side of their duplex—and they are “curtains with daring dashes of red!” A whispered call to Push and Shove leads to a satisfying conclusion.

A good choice for newly independent readers not quite ready for longer fiction. (Early reader. 5-8)

NELLY MAY HAS HER SAY

DeFelice, Cynthia Illus. by Cole, Henry Farrar, Straus and Giroux (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 19, 2013 978-0-374-39899-6

A playful remake of the English folktale “Master of All Masters.”

This is a lurking cumulative tale wherein the accumulation comes in a great, merry rush at the very end of the telling. The broad strokes are the same as Joseph Jacobs’: A young girl goes looking for work and lands a job with a single, well-to-do man. A requirement for the job is that the girl must use the unusual names he has given to everyday objects.

In the original, he calls his bed a “barnacle,” and his pants are “squibs and crackers,” but DeFelice has given the gentleman’s inventions a supercharging. The bed is now a “restful slumberific,” his pants are “long-legged limberjohns,” and his hound a “fur-faced fluffenbarker” complete with a “wigger-wagger” (tail).

This makes the ending a tumbling, heroic effort, rather than a spray of commonplace wordplay, but it is all in the service of an amusing mouthful of words. Cole’s artwork remains true to his warm and humorous sensibility, with Nelly May, the young girl, a gratifyingly emotive creature. The contemporary twist on the ending brings the story right up to the late 19th century.

Jocular and sparking with energy, an old tale gets a new turn. (Picture book. 4-8)

BROKEN WINGS

Dittemore, Shannon Thomas Nelson (336 pp.) $9.99 paperback | Feb. 19, 2013 978-1401686376 Series: Angel Eyes, 2 This second installment of the Angel Eyes series pits gifted humans against the demons of Abaddon, with assistance from some of the Heavenly host.

The story does not recap the events of Angel Eyes (2012) but offers enough clues and explanations that 74

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new readers can infer what’s going on. Brilliant dancer Brielle has a bracelet that’s actually an angel’s halo. When she wears it like a crown, she can see the Celestial—the otherwise invisible realm of the angels. A strange race of angels has torn through to the orange-glowing Celestial, where fear flows like a black liquid and worship rises like colored smoke to Heaven. Brielle’s ability threatens Lucifer himself, so he dispatches Brielle’s former foe, the demon Damien, to catch her. Damien also has an interest in Brielle’s boyfriend, Jake, a healer who lives with an angel in disguise. Though the warring factions do plenty of sparring, Brielle and Jake function as observers and targets rather than as fighters. As a result, the book’s suspense is not particularly immersive.

Dittemore freely quotes from the Bible and Shakespeare, and she keeps the human side of her story real by giving Brielle’s father a serious drinking habit. The Christian doctrine in the book is not soft-pedaled, but it remains far enough in the background to appeal to general readers. A sequel beckons.

An unremarkable but solid addition to the current angel glut. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)

HOMELAND

Doctorow, Cory Tor (400 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-7653-3369-8 Doctorow strikes a successful balance between agenda and story in his newest near-future, pre-dystopian thriller.

Marcus Yallow is at a loss; he’s dropped out of college because of finances and struggles to find employment in a terrible recession. Through a lucky encounter and thanks to his reputation as a technological guru and activist—a reputation left over from Little Brother (2008)—Marcus lands a job as webmaster for an independent politician campaigning as a reformer. Even as Marcus works to effect change through legitimate channels, he grapples with an ethical quandary. Frenemy Masha has given him some confidential information as insurance to release should anything happen to her—which it does. He’s tasked with sorting through the massive potential leak, making sense of the secrets revealed, and coming up with a method of release that is credible, will attract notice and won’t be linked back to him. After all, the secrets contained reveal large-scale privacy breaches and government corruption that involves military contractors like the intimidating figures following Marcus around. Such nerd-favorite icons as 3-D printers, Wil Wheaton and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic serve as in-jokes, but the concise explanations of real-world technology and fast pace make it accessible to less technologically savvy readers.

Outstanding for its target audience, and even those outside Doctorow’s traditional reach may find themselves moved by its call to action. (afterwords, bibliography) (Science fiction. 13 & up)

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“Despite the looming takeover, Haley and Dodger face universal questions: Where did I come from? Where am I going?

And are pancakes the perfect fuel for adventurers?” from the fellowship for alien detection

LILY THE LITTLE PRINCESS

Drescher, Daniela Illus. by Drescher, Daniela Floris (24 pp.) $16.95 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-86315-905-3

This sweet, small and simple German import will probably make children, especially girls, smile.

Princess Lily’s domain lies beyond a flowering hedge, and all summer she plays amid the flowers and grasses with frog and bird, dragonfly and rabbit. But in the winter, her animal friends sleep or migrate, and she wonders if there is anyone else like her, who would like to play in the winter. Come spring, she asks an old tree, a badger and a hedgehog if they know anyone like her.

They direct her across the forest, where she sees a prince named Tristan, who is looking for someone like himself. They embrace, have a beautiful wedding, followed by a happy winter, “And they are still living together happily today.” The human figures are tiny next to their animal friends, and each beautiful doublepage spread is full of flowers, berries, butterflies and fauna in luscious colors and exquisite details.

The gentle undercurrent of the search for a soul mate should resonate with even very young children, and the glorious dandelions, snails, raspberries and apple blossoms deserve repeated visits. (Picture book. 4 -7)

THE KING OF SPACE

Duddle, Jonny Illus. by Duddle, Jonny Templar/Candlewick (32 pp.) $15.99 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-0-7636-6435-0 Sick of his status as an intergalactic dung-shoveler, a young boy makes plans to become the King of Space.

Here is another variant on the boy-dreams-of-rulingthe-universe tale, with little tweaks here and there to make it Duddle’s own, but it’s threadbare in terms of originality. Rex lives in the Gamma Quadrant on a moog (cows in spacesuits) farm. He might be a futuristic cowherd now, but he has something else in mind. He cons a friend of his into helping him build warbots and a Dastardly Dung Ray to make good his King of Space scheme. He subdues the Western Spiral and then crowns himself, which brings down the wrath of the Galactic Alliance. After Rex kidnaps the daughter of the emperor, the Alliance corners Rex, who gives up and lets his mother save his bacon. Yes, all of this is told with tongue in cheek, but Rex is really a schmuck.

He lies to his friend, wastes part of the galaxy, kidnaps a girl (and demeans her: “Would my future queen like some choco-goo? Would you? Huh?”), then cravenly throws the disaster in his mother’s lap. Story aside—but then, what’s the point?—Duddle’s artwork beguiles in a way that Rex never will, with highly inventive deep-space creatures in the steampunk mode, minus the steam. |

With a hero so devoid of sympathy, this story sinks despite the buoyancy of its splendid illustrations. (Picture book. 4-8)

THE FELLOWSHIP FOR ALIEN DETECTION

Emerson, Kevin Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins (432 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-06-207185-9 978-0-06-207187-3 e-book

Two middle schoolers might be Earth’s only defense against an alien takeover.

Haley, a slightly neurotic overachiever, wants a summer of adventure that will look good on her college applications.

Dodger, a misfit who hears a phantom radio station in his head, hopes to finally find a place where he belongs. Haley and Dodger are brought together when they each receive a grant to study extraterrestrial activity. Their research could give them both what they desperately desire, but only if they can avoid being abducted. Assisted by the mysterious Alto, whose memory seems spotty at best, the two young investigators find themselves at the center of a global conspiracy. Unless the three unlikely heroes can figure out how to thwart the alien threat, Earth is scheduled to be turned into a zoo with mankind as its primary exhibit. Despite the looming takeover, Haley and Dodger face universal questions: Where did I come from?

Where am I going? And are pancakes the perfect fuel for adventurers? Quirky characters and an intriguing mystery elevate this story above many other alien encounters. Overwritten inner monologues and a plot that sometimes meanders for no discernible reasons make pacing an issue.

Alien surprise with a side of early-teen angst makes for a decent read. (Science fiction. 10-14)

REVENGE OF THE GIRL WITH THE GREAT PERSONALITY

Eulberg, Elizabeth Point/Scholastic (272 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Mar. 1, 2013 978-0-545-47699-7 978-0-545-52078-2 e-book

Comedy yields to an affecting drama when a witty but plain girl decides to get glamorous, with unexpected results.

Lexi finds herself trapped in a seriously dysfunctional family as her morbidly obese mother pushes her little sister into the child–beauty-pageant circuit. At 7, Mackenzie appears to love it, but Lexi suspects it’s her mom who’s addicted to the pageants, spending thousands every weekend despite the family’s near-poverty. Lexi works and saves diligently

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“A giddy, intense, hugely fun ride that will propel listening audiences large or small into spinning tizzies of their own.” from night sky wheel ride

to fund her dream of moving to New York. She pays no attention to boys despite a secret crush on Logan, the boyfriend of a teen-pageant beauty. Finally, her two best friends goad her into dolling up for school with the help of a pageant hairstylist and makeup artist, resulting in her immediate rise in popularity, and top dog Taylor, Logan’s best friend, asks her out on a date. Popularity proves double-edged; Lexi has difficulty with both her longtime friends and her feelings for Taylor and Logan. Eulberg writes what starts as a witty, fast-moving comedy and morphs it into an affecting drama, drawing cogent parallels between the pageant circuit and Lexi’s Dallas high school. In the final pages the author drives her message home with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, an indulgence that is easily overlooked.

Excellent comedy and drama. (Fiction. 12-16)

BETTER NATE THAN EVER

Federle, Tim Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-4424-4689-2

A story of Broadway dreams tailormade for the younger side of the Glee audience.

Jankburg, Penn., has always been too small-town for 13-year-old Nate Foster’s Broadway-sized dreams. Jocks and God rule in the Foster house, which is good news for Anthony, Nate’s older brother, and bad news for a boy with a soft spot for jazz hands and show tunes. Thankfully, Nate’s best friend, Libby, shares his love of the Great White Way. When Libby learns of an upcoming audition for a Broadway-musical version of E.T., it’s too good an opportunity to pass up. With Libby as his cover, the two hatch a plan that will have Nate to New York and back with the role of Elliott firmly in hand before anyone even knows he’s gone missing. Alas, things rarely go according to plan. Nate is a quirky and endearing leading man from the start, and anyone who has ever felt out of place will easily identify with him. It’s a joy to watch him fall head over heels for a city that couldn’t care less about him—in the best possible way.

Unfortunately, the cartoonish cover art and a predominantly lighthearted beginning may mislead some readers. Federle’s debut addresses—deftly—big and solemn issues in the second half of the novel, particularly with regard to family, sexuality and religion.

Bravo, Nate! (Fiction. 8-13)

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NIGHT SKY WHEEL RIDE

Fitch, Sheree Illus. by Yayo Tradewind Books (32 pp.) $16.95 | Feb. 15, 2013 978-1-896580-67-8 Poem and pictures unite in a delirious celebration of a first ride on a Ferris wheel.

Two children answer their own repeated chorus of “Are we big enough this year, Mama? / Are we brave enough, Brother? / Sister, are you ready to fly?” with a resounding “YES.” They race through fairgrounds to soar, “swiggle sway / creak squeak / rickety ratcheting / up! / up! / up!” Literally rolling across the pages, Fitch’s lines fizz with motion, emotion and metaphor. Yayo’s cotton-candy–colored pictures pick it all up with vigorously brushed fancies in which the children’s arms become wings or reach out to dandelion-fluff stars. The wheel itself undergoes a series of transformations from giant squealing pig to spinning clothes dryer to bars of music to rows of cocoons and exotic birds. Earthbound again, the excitement abates not a whit: “We are fizzy with the dizzy reeling / fuzzy with the Ferris wheel feeling // Now and forever a part of the sky.”

A giddy, intense, hugely fun ride that will propel listening audiences large or small into spinning tizzies of their own. (Picture book. 5-9)

DESTINY REWRITTEN

Fitzmaurice, Kathryn Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $15.99 | $8.99 e-book | Feb. 19, 2013 978-0-06-162501-5 978-0-06-220276-5 e-book Sixth-grader Emily Davis, destined to be a poet like her namesake, discovers that she can help the hand of fate.

Emily doesn’t like poetry very much.

She’d rather be a different kind of writer. Her single mother chose her name from a book she’d purchased the day before Emily’s birth. Alongside Emily Dickinson’s poems, she wrote important happenings from her daughter’s life. But the very day Emily learns that one of those notes contains her father’s name, the book accidentally goes to Goodwill. Her efforts to find it again and learn her father’s name serve as the scaffolding for this first-person coming-of-age story set in Berkeley, Calif., during the 2006-08 oak grove controversy. Longing to complete her family, Emily actually practices composing happy endings for romance novels. With the help of best friend, Wavey St. Clair, and soldier-wannabe cousin Mortie, she haunts used bookstores. Some surprising coincidences and her new practice of doing the unexpected—to leave room for chance—lead to a very happy ending indeed. There’s a proto-romance with classmate Connor Kelly, attention paid to environmental issues and

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some interesting poetry, but the focus is squarely on Emily’s growing self-determination. Emotionally, her story rings true.

Readers will applaud Emily’s newfound understanding of the workings of destiny and might even follow her lead.

(Fiction. 9-13)

BULLY BAIT

Fry, Michael Illus. by Fry, Michael Disney Hyperion (224 pp.) $12.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-1-4231-6924-6 Series: The Odd Squad, 1 In an illustrated novel, the first in a proposed series, cartoonist Fry (Over the Hedge) humorously mines the world of middle school as seen through the eyes of bullied Nick to answer the question: Can three oddballs team together to take down the school bully?

Nick, surely the shortest 12-year-old ever, spends his school days being stuffed in lockers by Roy. To counter their social isolation, Nick’s guidance counselor forces Nick and too-tall Molly to join nerdy Karl in the lamest club ever: Safety Patrol.

Mr. Dupree, a Shakespeare-quoting hippie janitor who is able to arm fart “Greensleeves,” advises them to take control with a series of hilarious attempts to get back at Roy—until the kids develop some empathy for Roy and realize they are bullying him. Mr. Dupree’s wacky antics as he advises the kids to “bring the crazy” are frankly bizarre. Much that the Odd Squad does to get to Roy (stealing, breaking into school records) is not admirable. But this gives the characters dimension: The bully is not all bad; the bullied are not all good. Abundant cartoon-style illustrations enhance the book’s silly yet sensitive portrayal of bullying and unlikely friendships.

An important message, humorously delivered, that will appeal to Diary of a Wimpy Kid fans. (Fiction. 8-12)

BEHOLDING BEE

Fusco, Kimberly Newton Knopf (336 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-375-86836-8 978-0-375-89886-0 e-book 978-0-375-96836-5 PLB Ever since her parents died, young Bee has had two protectors: Pauline, who runs the hot dog cart with her in Ellis’ traveling show, and the old lady in the flappy hat, invisible to all but Bee. In a distinct, heartfelt voice, Bee explains how both provide comfort when superstitious, often mean, townsfolk stare at the diamond-shaped birthmark on her face. When Ellis threatens |

to put her in a “look-see booth” to boost wartime ticket sales, then forces Pauline and Bee apart, Bee runs away and finds herself on the old lady Mrs. Potter’s doorstep. The setup is slow-moving and feels more coincidental than supernaturally driven, but the scenes of Bee adjusting to life with not one but two ghosts (a Mrs. Swift occupies the house, too) offer humor and inspiration. The spirited ladies are determined to make sure Bee is standing firmly on her own two feet before they disappear. A disabled schoolmate and her family help to ground Bee, too. Bee works hard, forges friendships and learns her family history. In a turn of events, she also rescues Pauline. If the parts are a bit disjointed and the ending pat, readers will still feel the magic when Bee finally holds her head high and lets her diamond shine.

Not quite a flawless gem, but there are plenty of moments that sparkle. (Historical fiction. 8-12)

SECRETS AND SHADOWS Two Friends in a World at War

Gallagher, Brian O’Brien Press/Dufour Editions (224 pp.) $12.95 paperback | Feb. 22, 2013 978-1-84717-350-8

Two young Dublin refugees cement a friendship and unmask a Nazi spy in this patchy import.

Gallagher crafts a tale that is as much about adjusting to loss and change in wartime as it is about having adventures. Sent to his grandma’s in neutral Ireland from Liverpool to escape the massive bombing, Barry meets Grace, a local who has lost her own home to an accidental bombing. She and her widowed mother have been forced to move in with her granddad and obnoxious Uncle Freddie. Along with performing various acts of friendship—most notably, Grace secretly bribes a rough upperclassman to deal with a bully who is giving Barry a hard time—the two engage in counterespionage. They confirm their suspicions about Barry’s smooth talking “Polish” gym instructor by repeatedly breaking into his house, ultimately finding a radio transmitter. They then contrive to capture him, narrowly avoiding being shot. The author tucks in plenty of period details and dialogue (“Baggsy first go on the binoculars!”) for atmosphere. He not only leaves his protagonists heroes (never mind their predilection for vigilantism), but covers all of the major characters’ later lives in an epilogue.

While the Battle of Britain isn’t culturally central on this side of the pond, U.S. readers may be intrigued by the atypical setting as well as the brisk, if slow to arrive, climax. (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)

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THE 39 DEATHS OF ADAM STRAND

Galloway, Gregory Dutton (320 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 21, 2013 978-0-525-42565-6

Suicide from the eyes of a survivor.

Seventeen-year-old Adam Strand tells readers up front that he doesn’t want to tell his story; he really wishes he didn’t have a story to tell. He’s killed himself 39 times using various methods: jumping, bullets, poisoning and more. For reasons that are never explained, however, he always manages to wake up a few hours after each attempt as if it never happened. His parents and friends are nonplussed by his behavior—his father even includes “dead time” in his grounded hours for every minute past his curfew that he spends dead. Alex Award winner Galloway’s first novel for teens is all character sketch and atmosphere. He pens beautifully rendered landscapes—a haunting, abandoned bridge over a river, a ravaged statue of an angel in the town square. These melancholy descriptions reveal more of the story than Adam or his supporting characters. Adam himself is simultaneously provocative and off-putting as a narrator. His story is compelling, but he withholds. Herein lies the problem: Galloway leaves out the bits that teens would want to read about most: the suicide details, solid connections between Adam and his friends, a budding romance.

All are either buried or glided over with a cool nonchalance that will be hard to follow for teens accustomed to titles like Thirteen Reasons Why. A moody, compelling read that never cuts to the quick.

(Fiction. 14 & up)

SEEDS, BEES, BUTTERFLIES, AND MORE!

Gerber, Carole Illus. by Yelchin, Eugene Henry Holt (32 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-8050-9211-0

Eighteen poems designed to be read aloud present the world of growing things in paired first-person voices.

Ideal for classroom use, this collection of short performance pieces introduces seed distribution, plant germination, the roles of roots and sunlight, pollinators and some familiar creatures. Working this plant world are two kinds of bees, worms, snails, ladybugs and, of course, monarch butterflies— as caterpillars munching milkweed, in chrysalises and emerging to fly. With short lines, judicious use of rhyme and some interesting language, the poetry works well. “Let’s get out of these coats. / I’m not ready. Please wait! / It’s easy. I’ll show you. / Watch me germinate.” The personification of each subject will appeal to young readers, and the voices are distinguished by spacing on the page as well as by color. For the most part, 78

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each double-page spread contains a single poem, illustrated with Yelchin’s bright graphite-and-gouache paintings, which take full advantage of the author’s colorful subjects. There are indoor and outdoor scenes: One child blows a dandelion seed; two others observe seedlings. Other animals appear, too: birds, a dog, a hungry rabbit and a curious vole. Connections are everywhere. On a final page, Gerber summarizes the processes introduced in her poems.

A pleasing introduction to plant biology with crosscurricular appeal. (Informational poetry. 4-7)

PRINCESS POSEY AND THE TINY TREASURE

Greene, Stephanie Illus. by Sisson, Stephanie Roth Putnam (96 pp.) $12.99 | Feb. 21, 2013 978-0-142-42415-5 Series: Princess Posey, 5

Obedient Posey worries about the Consequences Drawer, the place where Ms. Lee sequesters all the toys and other tchotchkes that kids love to bring to school.

After three warnings, Ms. Lee calmly takes the watch, toy or lip gloss and returns it at a later time. But when Posey brings in Poinky, a new and adorable pig finger puppet, an unusually grumpy Ms. Lee warns her to put the toy away. After Poinky falls out of her pocket by accident, Ms. Lee confiscates the pink porcine pet, telling her Poinky will not be returned till Friday, a much longer incarceration than other items have received. Posey confesses her crime to her mother and makes a plan to speak to Ms. Lee. What follows is an awkward, emotionally real conversation that will be an inspiration to any student who feels wronged by a teacher. Ms. Lee responds with love and empathy, even admitting that her own bad headache played a role in the bad day for all. Greene continues to place sympathetic characters in familiar situations conveyed in short, breezy chapters—the ideal recipe for a series for newly independent readers or for a quick classroom read-aloud.

Gentle black-and-white illustrations capably complement the story, adding another emotional level.

New readers, especially girls, will be happy to see that another Posey book is in the works. (Fiction. 5-8)

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“The Cree and the white settlers are portrayed accurately and sympathetically, but without sentiment; complicated situations unfold without simple answers.” from red river stallion

CHICKENHARE

Grine, Chris Illus. by Grine, Chris Graphix/Scholastic (160 pp.) $10.99 paperback | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-545-48508-1 Why did the Chickenhare cross the wintry terrain? Why, to flee a maniacal taxidermist, of course.

Chickenhare, a leporine creature with feathers and chicken legs, and his companion, a bearded turtle named Abe, have been captured and taken to the house of Klaus, a demented taxidermist who delights in torturing and preserving unusual “pets” and has an unsettling resemblance to another, more festive Claus. Determined to escape, the pair team up with two other strange creatures named Meg and Banjo who await a similar fate in Klaus’ lair. Don’t think that this amalgamated cast of characters is the pinnacle of this offering’s whimsy; this peculiar party will also include a monocled ghost-goat, a cranky Krampus and a race of cute but deadly beings with razor teeth known as Shromphs. Jokes run high, insults are easily and often slung, and cheap gags run rampant; these factors combine for an imaginative, outlandish and rollicking adventure, one that’s sure to pique the interest of preteen boys who seek silly over scholarly. Originally published by Dark Horse in 2006, this reissue adds vibrant color and valuable depth to Grine’s illustrations, creating a pleasingly odd world readers can easily slide into and explore.

Twisted, weird and fun. (Graphic fantasy/adventure. 9-14)

FROG SONG

Guiberson, Brenda Z. Illus. by Spirin, Gennady Henry Holt (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-8050-9254-7 In this oversized album, 11 frogs from around the world exemplify the varied ways frogs find enough moisture to keep themselves and their eggs and tadpoles alive.

“Frogs have a song” Guiberson reminds readers. From the “PSSST-PSSST” of the strawberry poison dart frog in the rain forest to the “BRACKBRACK!” of the wood frog in a bog, spread by spread she introduces readers to both songs and singers. Short paragraphs ring variations on the theme of frog life and reproduction. In Oklahoma, the Great Plains narrowmouthed toad shares a damp burrow with a tarantula. The swamp-dwelling Surinam toad carries eggs under her skin. In a Chilean forest, Darwin’s frog keeps his tadpoles in his vocal sacs. Spirin’s detailed paintings, done with tempera, watercolor and pencil in a realistic palette of greens and browns, show frogs in their surroundings, blending in and yet standing out, poised to leap off the page. Finally, “A frog song is a celebration |

of clean water, plants, and insects to eat.” This message is followed by two pages of fast facts about the species described in prose and illustrated with thumbnails—but, alas, there are no maps. There’s also a reminder that frogs today are in trouble and a bibliography including both children’s and adult books and websites.

Another harmonious salute to the natural world by an accomplished pair. (Informational picture book. 4-9)

RED RIVER STALLION

Harrison, Troon Bloomsbury (304 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-59990-845-8

Amelia Otterchild Mackenzie, a Cree-Scottish half-blood, orphaned twice, struggles to find places for herself and her young sister Charlotte among the Hudson’s Bay fur-trading community.

Her birth father abandoned her and her mother when she was an infant, traveling west to the Red River and never returning. She has friends among the white men of the fort, but no place to live; the Cree, who welcome her, are starving. When a mysterious creature swims toward her in a fogbound river, Amelia recognizes it as her pawakan, her spirit-animal, and hopes it will lead her to her true life. The creature is a stallion whose white mistress—the first white woman Amelia has ever seen—is bound for none other than the Red River. Amelia’s fascination with the horse leads it to trust her enough to follow her up a swaying gangplank onto a small riverboat; she, Charlotte and the white woman, Orchid, embark on a 600mile journey west. Harrison sensitively depicts Amelia’s feelings of both belonging and abandonment as she stands with her feet in two worlds. The Cree and the white settlers are portrayed accurately and sympathetically, but without sentiment; complicated situations unfold without simple answers. Amelia never believes that the stallion Foxfire belongs to her, only feeling in her heart that they are linked.

(A map will be posted on the author’s website.)

The emotionally satisfying ending underscores the relationship beautifully. (Historical fiction. 10-14)

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“What keeps the book aloft, and it does hover nicely, especially for the front end of its age range, is the sheer musicality of the verse…” from the princess and the peas

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEAS

Hart, Caryl Illus. by Warburton, Sarah Nosy Crow/Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-7636-6532-6

Hart and Warburton serve forth another princess with far too many peas in her life.

Just by the look of her, readers know Lily-Rose May is “a sweet little girlie; / her eyes were bright blue and her hair was so curly.” She and her dad live in the woods: “She was kind and polite and was usually good.” Then comes the day her dad tries to foist peas on her, and Lily-Rose May will have none of it. “Her hands were all sweaty. Her skin felt so crawly.” She isn’t faking; the peas really do make her sick, and then comes the doctor’s diagnosis: Lily-Rose May is a princess. His prescription is for her to move to the castle. No peas there, thank goodness, but there is cold cabbage stew and all the demands of royalty that diminish the allure of the big house and nice clothes. Papa and his peas suddenly look very good. The story here is meager and mild to the point of vanishing: nothing syrupy, no hard yuks at anyone’s expense. What keeps the book aloft, and it does hover nicely, especially for the front end of its age range, is the sheer musicality of the verse, which slips off the tongue as if it had been greased, and the merry artwork, which is buoyant and full of colors that rove between springlike and ribbon candy.

A well-fashioned, if thinly sliced, tale of the well-traveled princess. (Picture book. 3-6)

CRASH AND BURN

Hassan, Michael Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (544 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 19, 2013 978-0-06-211290-3 978-0-06-211292-7 e-book Two teens’ long-standing conflict culminates in an aborted school shooting in this bloated debut.

ADD pothead Steven Crashinsky and evil genius David Burnett have been best frenemies since Burn almost blew up their elementary school—with Crash in it. Circling each other uneasily throughout their school careers, they always come back together when tragedy strikes, as when Crash’s parents divorce or Burn’s mother dies. Both believe that they are somehow connected by fate or magic, and both are fixated on Burn’s doomed sister, Roxanne, who is the dubious object of Crash’s affection. Hassan sacrifices storytelling for voice, which might work if this overwritten novel were half as long. It feels as though the author has thrown everything at this plot but the kitchen sink. There is a sadistic teacher, a sadistic father, multiple suicide attempts, Thanksgiving Day family meltdowns, deaths from cancer, 9/11 and overdoses, copious pot smoking, a gun pulled in a parking 80

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lot and a teen sex video. The effect is numbing, especially when related in Crash’s obvious, dense, blow-by-blow first person.

Most readers will have zoned out by the time the author finally gets around to the novel’s nonclimactic climax.

No fire here, just fizzle. (Fiction. 14 & up)

IMPOSTOR

Hathaway, Jill Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (272 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Mar. 26, 2013 978-0-06-207798-1 978-0-06-207800-1 e-book In this sequel to 2012’s Slide, Vee suspects that someone is sliding into her own mind, instead of the other way around.

Vee has the ability to “slide” into other people’s minds and take over their speech and actions.

However, she has been having blackouts herself, some leading to near-fatal consequences. Vee and former best friend Samantha patch things up after Samantha learns that Scotch, the boy who menaced Vee in the earlier book, has been spreading rumors about her, and they concoct a plan to retaliate. Everything goes wrong when Scotch falls off a cliff after yet another blackout. Vee doesn’t know how Scotch fell, and the girls must hide their involvement in the incident. After a murder occurs, matters become even more serious, and Vee doesn’t know whom to trust. Even as all this plays out, Vee realizes she wants to get romantic with friend Rollins, who doesn’t seem to reciprocate, and Vee’s long-lost aunt shows up and seems to be taking her mother’s place in their home. Vee’s on-again, off-again romance with Rollins adds some spice and uncertainty, but the major story here surrounds the mystery of who is sliding into Vee. Suspects abound. Hathaway manages to juggle a lot: Family matters, friendship and romance mix with the paranormal elements and the mystery.

Hits the right buttons for mystery and paranormal lovers. (Paranormal mystery. 12 & up)

THE CAT’S BATON IS GONE A Musical Cat-tastrophe Hennesy, Scott Illus. by Lanzisero, Joe Disney Hyperion (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 19, 2013 978-1-4231-4583-7

A medley of mewsicians from around the world makes up Leopold von Kittenkat’s orcatstra, but where is his baton?

Page by page and quatrain by quatrain the Meowstro queries each of his instrumentalists, but when the baton doesn’t appear, the versatile conductor finds another way. The Disney background of both author and illustrator is evident in this

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slight but amusing story, their first picture book. But Fantasia was never like this. In Lanzisero’s whimsical illustrations, the players, all cats, have names and costumes that reflect national stereotypes: Swiss Miss Gabriele fiddles in a laced top and dirndl skirt; Taj, the Indian pungi-player, sports a Sikh turban; Sven, the Swedish trombonist, wears a Viking helmet. The musical instruments of this curious orchestra are surprising, too. Besides the traditional violin, oboe, trombone and harp, they include such oddities as bagpipes, a taiko drum, a didgeridoo and a concertina. All the instruments mentioned, as well as other musical words used, such as virtuoso and oompah-pah, are defined in a concluding glossary. The verse includes wordplay and rhymes that will make readers smile, but the beat is irregular; those who read this aloud may want to practice.

Silly but fun, with a smidgen of information, too. (Picture book. 5-8)

KNIT YOUR BIT

Hopkinson, Deborah Illus. by Guarnaccia, Steven Putnam (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 21, 2013 978-0-399-25241-9 Even boys can knit, when it’s for their fathers fighting overseas.

It’s World War I, and Mikey’s dad is in the Army. His mother and sister are busy knitting warm garments, but Mikey won’t help. “No way! Boys don’t knit.”

Then his teacher encourages the class to participate in an upcoming Central Park Knitting Bee. It’s the Purl Girls vs. the Boys’ Knitting Brigade. Mikey, the “sergeant of socks,” and his two friends practice their stitches. On the day of the bee, he marches his troops to a bench and commences the battle. The boys don’t knit too well in spite of their earnest concentration.

Mikey despairs of finishing his project—a pair of socks—until an encounter with a disabled veteran gives him a more sensitive perspective on war. As in previous titles, Hopkinson was inspired by an actual event, creating a fast-paced narrative sure to appeal to children today. E-communication has long outstripped snail mail, but the loneliness and the worry of families left behind will still resonate. Guarnaccia’s pen-and-ink–andwatercolor illustrations nicely evoke the fashions of the time period. Liberal use of white space focuses attention on the children and their earnest if awkward stitchery.

A fine entry in commemoration of the upcoming centennial of World War I. (author’s note, Web resources.)

(Picture book. 4-8)

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THE TWELVE-FINGERED BOY

Jacobs, John Horner Carolrhoda Lab (280 pp.) $17.95 | $12.95 e-book | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-7613-9007-7 978-1-4677-0950-7 e-book

Jacobs serves up a juvenile-detention story flavored with weirdness.

Shreveport Justice Cannon, know within the Casimir Pulaski Juvenile Detention Center for Boys as Shreve, is happy to deal candy and wait until his sentence is up. When Jack Graves arrives and is assigned to Shreve’s cell, Casimir Juvie starts receiving visits from the mysterious Mr. Quincrux and Ilsa. They are curious about Jack’s polydactyly—he is the titular 12-fingered boy—and the strange circumstances that brought Jack to Casimir. Shreve and Jack are forced to flee from Quincrux and his creepy ability to invade people’s minds, even as Shreve seems to develop a talent for mind hijacking as well. While both teens are perfectly likable, there’s nothing new about them either. Shreve’s back story of neglect and self-sacrifice and Jack’s outcast status based on physical appearance are all too familiar. Quincrux’s power adds a dash of paranormal horror, but a potentially intriguing exploration of moral relativism through Shreve’s possessions becomes more lecture than narrative. A string of seemingly random encounters provides action but works against narrative cohesion.

Against the plethora of mutant and superhuman narratives, this effort just feels shopworn. (Paranormal adventure. 12-14)

THE MADNESS UNDERNEATH

Johnson, Maureen Putnam (304 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-399-25661-5 Series: Shades of London, 2

A double or triple pun in the title resonates throughout the creepy, clever and ambiguous second volume in the Shades of London series, following The Name of the Star (2011).

Aurora—Rory—a Louisiana-bred teen at a boarding school in London while her parents teach in Bristol, is recovering from a stab wound, an encounter with the Ripper and the sudden absence of the Shades, friends who secretly hunt ghosts. Rory narrates in her thoughtful, voluble, acutely aware teen voice: about her boyfriend, Jerome, how he makes her feel and why they break up; about lying to her therapist, her roommate and her teachers; about Stephen, Callum and Boo. They are the Shades, whose job is to prevent ghosts from murdering people.

Two more murders occur, and it becomes apparent that the Shades need Rory’s own power (she can destroy ghosts with a touch). Rory is lonely and confused, but she also revels in the power she has; her delight is as vivid as her confusion. The story

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suffers somewhat from a slow beginning, in which readers are brought up to speed from the previous volume, and greatly from a cliffhanger ending that will drive readers up a (ancient, cracked stone) wall with frustration that the next book is not available right now. As always, Johnson wields words with a supple facility that keeps those pages turning.

The London minutiae are utterly engaging, the villains satisfyingly weird and numerous. And there is kissing.

(Supernatural thriller. 12 & up)

BALLERINA DREAMS

Jones, Janey Louise Illus. by Munro, Moira Floris (144 pp.) $9.95 paperback | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-86315-920-6 Series: Cloudberry Castle, 3 In her third outing, Katie faces disruptions to her well-ordered life from the new girl in class.

Katie’s family now lives in Scotland’s Cloudberry Castle, which they inherited; her mum, a former dancer, runs a ballet school there. All is happiness for Katie, who loves to dance and hang with her classmates. Then trouble arrives in the guise of a new student, Velvet, whose father is a big Hollywood actor. Velvet is getting an introduction to ballet as training for an upcoming movie. Suddenly, best friends are no longer that. Will Velvet steal the limelight? Another complication in Katie’s life is the abused pony that an old friend now owns. Can Katie balance her love of the pony with her love of ballet? In a somewhat far-fetched plot twist, New York City Ballet announces that ballet students can audition for a role in their traveling performances of The Nutcracker Suite. Katie adores the ballet, especially the second act, which takes place in the Land of Sweets, perfect for her own sweet tooth. Will she get the coveted role of Clara? American readers should be able to work out most of the Scottish wording and phraseology without too much trouble.

A sugary dessert for preteen readers who love ballet, with a spoonful of whipped cream thrown in for pony fans.

(Fiction. 8-11)

STAR TURN

Jones, Ursula Inside Pocket (368 pp.) $9.99 paperback | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-908458-16-2 If you meet your double, does it mean one of you must die?

It’s 1936, and the youngest member of the Star Turn troupe of British juvenile performers, Ollie Pigott, sees what looks like his twin in the window of a passing 82

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train. Could it be his double, or is it just his reflection? Ollie has more pressing problems, like trying to get out of his father’s acting troupe by learning acrobatics (which will also effect an escape from his father’s abuse), so he quickly moves on. American Ralph Halvern, the boy on the other train, is the bored son of a Hollywood movie star, and he immediately becomes obsessed with his look-alike. With the help of the annoying Giselle, a puzzlingly footloose French girl, he slips away from his tutor to search for the face in the window. If the two ever meet, how will their lives change? This taxing historical mystery comes directly from England and is densely flavored with slang; though there is a glossary, it is aimed at modern British children (“Yard: An old measurement…Just under a metre”) and does little to illuminate American readers. The excruciatingly slow plot doesn’t begin until page 70, and the subsequent scenes of mistaken identity quickly become tiresome. What could have been an interesting riff on The Prince and the Pauper with a nice surprise twist instead plays fast and loose with readers’ credulity to a shameful extent.

Even Anglophiles should take pause. (Historical fiction. 12-14)

MAMA HEN’S BIG DAY

Latter, Jill Illus. by Latter, Jill NorthSouth (32 pp.) $17.95 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-7358-4109-3

Spunky Mama Hen searches high and low for the very best location for her egg.

This simple pattern story sees the hen locating a spot to lay her egg and then quickly rejecting it due to a commonly understood animal danger. “A cave looks cozy,” but the view of a snake coiled up inside marks it an inappropriate nesting place.

The cat stalks the peaceful meadow; a porcupine has claimed the bed of leaves; a fox creeps through the tall grass. Placement of relevant text on the same page as the potential threat keeps tension at a minimum. Bright, loose watercolors occasionally allow the white background to show through, creating energy, while whimsical black outlines show motion, texture and attitude. Very observant readers will enjoy spotting small details, including a reappearing ladybug. Poor Mama Hen’s desperation is effectively conveyed in a surreal, spiraling spread. A page turn reveals what many readers may not find to be the perfect nest: “the tippy-top of the tallest mountain,” which looks like it is about to crumble into the sea. No matter; the chick hatches almost instantaneously.

The low word count and brisk pace make this tale suitable for younger readers, though its adherence to visual logic is a little iffy. (Picture book. 2-5)

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“Readers will savor this latest Bliss family adventure as Rose and her siblings traverse Paris trying to outmaneuver Lily and turn the baking world upside down.” from a dash of magic

A DASH OF MAGIC

Littlewood, Kathryn Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (368 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-06-208429-3 978-0-06-208431-6 e-book Series: Bliss, 2 In this hilarious sequel to Bliss (2012), 12-year-old Rose Bliss and her eccentric family travel to Paris, where she competes in an international pastry competition to outbake her scheming Aunt Lily Le Fey and recover the Bliss Cookery Booke.

After Lily stole the Booke with its secret, special family recipes, the Bliss bakery’s pies, muffins and croissants have lost their magic, leaving everyone in Calamity Falls feeling “a bit like warm lettuce.” Meanwhile, Lily has a best-selling cookbook and a popular TV cooking show, and her Magical Ingredient threatens to have the “country in the palm of her hand.” Determined to stop Lily, Rose challenges her in the formidable Gala des Gâteaux Grands, with the Booke as the prize.

To assemble the bizarre ingredients for their unconventional recipes, Rose and her family risk their necks and encounter ghostly creatures, searching the Seine, the Louvre, the Catacombs, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles and Notre Dame. Employing unorthodox cat-and-mouse subterfuge, a desperate Rose eventually discovers she may not need magic to be the best baker if she has her family’s love. Readers will savor this latest Bliss family adventure as Rose and her siblings traverse Paris trying to outmaneuver Lily and turn the baking world upside down. Spot art captures key themes.

Fantastic fantastical fare. (Fantasy. 8-12)

CHRISTOPHER SAT STRAIGHT UP IN BED

Long, Kathy Illus. by Cantor, Patricia Eerdmans (33 pp.) $16.00 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-8028-5359-2

A potentially cozy nighttime mystery is sabotaged by an incomprehensible ending.

Cantor’s dim, grainy, luminously blue illustrations cast a properly atmospheric tone over little Christopher’s search for the source of a loud “Honk-Shoo” that wakes him up. Is it an elephant? A monster under his bed or in the closet? A dinosaur stomping down the street? No, as it turns out—it’s his grandpa, sawing away in the next room despite Grandma’s poking elbow.

Christopher looks a little like a hedgehog, but he probably isn’t; his grandparents are definitely bears. But that’s not the only odd note here: After snuggling down between the couple despite Grandma’s superfluous warning that Grandpa snores, in the penultimate scene, the lad’s up again. He pulls on his Grandma’s arm for some reason as Grandpa bugles away. Is he |

trying to lead her back to his bedroom? Or poke Grandpa again?

Neither the placement of the figures nor the closing, wordless dreamscape offers a clue.

A confusing, unfinished miss next to similarly themed outings like Melinda Long and Holly Meade’s When Papa Snores (2000), Barbara Joosse and Jan Jutte’s ROAWR! (2009) or Nicola Moon and Eleanor Taylor’s Tick-Tock, DripDrop! (2004). (Picture book. 3-5)

NATURE RECYCLES How About You?

Lord, Michelle Illus. by Morrison, Cathy Sylvan Dell (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paperback | Feb. 10, 2012 978-1-60718-615-1 978-1-60718-627-4 paperback Reuse and recycling happen throughout the natural world; you should do it, too.

Spread by spread, a collection of curious animal behaviors and the endless loop of the water cycle are offered as examples of recycling in the natural world. From a decorator sea urchin, protected by his collection of ocean refuse, to an Asian elephant’s meal of the banana leaf she first used as a fan, the text and slightly cartoony illustrations offer varied images of adaptive reuse. The animals are treated as individuals with intention. “Hermit crab helps keep the earth beautiful too.” A quiz in the end matter makes the point explicit: Animals “recycle for nests or shelters, camouflage or protection, as tools, or as nutrients.” Some may find this definition of recycling farfetched and irresponsibly anthropomorphic, but the wideranging examples are intriguing. An elf owl makes its nest in an old woodpecker hole in a Sonoran Desert cactus. In the Indian Ocean, a veined octopus carries empty coconut halves to use as an emergency hiding place. In Africa, a dung beetle feeds its hatchlings “rhino poop.” The final page shows a diverse group of young humans washing a bicycle with rags from outgrown clothes. “I recycle. How about you?” But why humans should do this is not explained.

Well-meant but not convincing. (Informational picture book. 5-9)

MY FATHER’S ARMS ARE A BOAT

Lunde, Stein Erik Translated by Dickson, Kari Illus. by Torseter, Øyvind Enchanted Lion Books (32 pp.) $15.95 | Feb. 2, 2013 978-1-59270-124-7 A young boy, grieving and unable to sleep, climbs into his father’s steady arms to find warmth and reassurance in this luminous story about loss, love and healing.

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Laying the Foundation, Setting Up House b y

Building Our House

Bean, Jonathan Farrar, Straus and Giroux (48 pp.) $17.99 Jan. 8th, 2013 978-0-374-38023-6

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At the risk of sounding like comedian Dana Carvey’s Grumpy Old Man character, circa the early ’90s (“In my day, we didn’t have safety standards for toys. We got rusty nails and big bags of broken glass!”), many young people today don’t have a firm grasp of where things come from, how they started or precisely why it is that they work.

Whether it’s understanding a piece of fruit’s path from orchard to grocery store or how one’s cellphone works, they’re at a loss.

I’m a 40-year-old who often feels the same way. My daughter once asked me how the computer saves a file to its hard drive, and I stuttered and stammered and put her off till I could look it up myself and explain the computer as much more than just a magic box. (I figured “there’s a fairy with an abacus inside” would not suffice.)

Cue the talented author/illustrator Jonathan Bean, whose newest picture book, Building Our House, relives his own family’s experience of building a new home when he was but a small child. “My family makes up a strong crew of four,” he writes in an immediate, present-tense voice, telling the story from the point of view of his older sister. Mom, Dad, the young girl and her baby brother (observant readers will notice the growing baby in Mom’s belly) construct a home from absolute scratch. The details provided and plans involved will certainly engage those young readers who love tools, vehicles and construction, but this story transcends even that: It’s the loving story of a family uniting to create something they can call their own.

And Bean doesn’t spare us those details: That’s what this affectionate ode to creation is all about.

The family chooses “the middle of a weedy field Dad and Mom bought from a farmer” and brings a trailer to serve as home base on the property. The family, as they begin to build, certainly secures help from extended family (Grandpa, for one, shows up with a backhoe) and friends, but they—and their sturdy truck, Willys—primarily handle it alone.

They drill for fresh water; lay pipes; supply electricity to the trailer; work with lumber, rock, sand and stone; form the basement; set the foundation with concrete; have a festive frame-raising party; establish the roof, siding, and windows before winter arrives; deal with plumbing, wiring and painting; and much more.

They throw a moving party, welcome a new baby to the family (with no fanfare—they have a house to finish, after all) and top it all off with their first night in their new home, cuddling on the couch with the family pets, reading together. Look closely, though: Both Mama and baby have fallen asleep, leaning on Dad. Whew. Building a home from scratch can wear one out. |

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Having the right tools for the right job. Measuring twice to get it right. Bean brings these notions vividly to life in this book—with its tall trim size, like a sturdy house. It’s a wondrous read, especially for those children who don’t often think about how modern-day things are built.

The notions of setting the corners of the house’s foundation by the North Star and positioning the house to ward off the wind? You can see what rich discussions the book can generate.

Bean’s art is warm and detailed. He captures the family’s determination with humor and precision. In a closing Author’s Note—“My parents thought of themselves as homesteaders and brought to house-building a pioneering spirit of ingenuity and independence”—he speaks with great respect about finding it difficult to “think of a better place to have grown up.”

In a consumer culture where shelves are full of “magic boxes,” it’s rewarding to see such a thoughtfully crafted picture book about laying the foundation, in more ways than one, for a “solid house.”

Building Our House was reviewed on page 2703 of the 12/1/12 issue of Kirkus Reviews

9 Julie Danielson (Jules) has, in her own words, conducted approximately eleventy billion interviews and features of authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog primarily focused on illustration and picture books.

p h oto © Ta e e u n Yoo

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Snow and silence have fallen. A father sits in a darkened room by the fire. His sleepless son, lovingly bundled up, looks out his room’s black window. He finds his father, who holds him. They begin to talk, about plans for the next day, about the birds they feed and the foxes that hunt. The father calms his boy’s anxious questions with the gentle constant: “Everything will be all right.” The boy asks about his mother, and the two go out into the night. The child wishes on a star and is filled with a profound longing. Back inside, the father holds his son until sleep finally comes. Lunde’s lyrical text and descriptive language is immediate and intimate. Through it he invokes sensory memories of closeness, warmth and refuge. Torseter’s sophisticated artwork brings an even greater emotional depth to the story. Color is used minimally, as the illustrations work in tones. His mixed-media illustrations, done within a 3-D format, like a diorama, have an ethereal quality. They seem grounded in reality, yet they are dreamlike, giving the impression one has been privileged to see someone else’s memory. His final spread soars as a wordless affirmation of hope.

A breathtaking masterpiece. (Picture book. 4 & up)

ODETTE’S SECRETS

Macdonald, Maryann Bloomsbury (224 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 1, 2013 978-1-59990-750-5

Introspective and accessible, this fictionalized history of a Jewish child surviving the Nazi occupation of France uses an elegant simplicity of language.

Odette, quite young, lives comfortably in a Paris apartment “on a cobblestone square / with a splashing fountain.” Watching a newsreel, she sees “soldiers march, / their legs and arms straight as sticks. / A funny-looking man with a mustache / shouts a speech.” The next day, she sees a Jewish-owned store with smashed windows.

Mama and Papa are secular, but “[w]e are Polish Jews because / Mama’s and Papa’s parents and grandparents / in faraway Poland / are all Jews.” Papa joins the French army and is taken prisoner; yellow stars are assigned; Mama sends Odette out of Paris. For 2 1/2 years, Odette practices Catholicism in one village and then another, growing attached to religious ritual and the countryside. Macdonald’s free verse uses unadorned images: A blanket from Odette’s devoted (Christian) godmother; schoolchildren pounding out “La Marseillaise” on desks with their fists to drown out rowdy German soldiers; those same children rolling Odette in a thorn bush when they suspect her secret. Odette’s first-person voice matures subtly as she grows in age and in comprehension of the war’s horrors.

Based on the real Odette Meyers (née Melspajz), this thoughtful, affecting piece makes an ideal Holocaust introduction for readers unready for death-camp scenes. (timeline, historical photographs, author’s note) (Historical verse fiction. 9-15)

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ATHLETE VS. MATHLETE

Mack, W.C. Bloomsbury (224 pp.) $16.99 | $6.99 paperback | Feb. 19, 2013 978-1-59990-915-8 978-1-59990-858-8 paperback Seventh-grade fraternal twins Owen and Russell are as different as night and day, and that spells trouble when both of them make the basketball team.

Owen is the quintessential jock: He plays basketball nearly all the time, and when he isn’t playing, he’s thinking about it. Russell, more concerned with academics, serves as leader of his school’s Masters of the Mind team, a group that competes against other schools to solve tough mental puzzles. He’s generally regarded as physically inept. Russell and Owen don’t understand each other’s worlds, but previously, it hardly seemed to matter. Then the new coach asks Russell to try out for the team because he’s tall, and with that height comes a surprisingly satisfying skill in blocking shots. Owen, no longer the sole star athlete in his family, becomes increasingly jealous as his father, who once more or less ignored Russell, begins to focus on both sons. Chapters alternate between the brothers’ first-person accounts, providing readers with a nice look at their diametrically opposed thinking. Russell’s chapters are amusing, as he discovers unexpected talents and abilities. Owen comes across as much less attractive; readers may be surprised by the level of his anger and his childish behavior.

Despite the differing perspectives, though, it’s never more than a superficial exploration of the differences between brothers, enlivened by welcome infusions of basketball. (Fiction. 10-14)

UNRAVEL ME

Mafi, Tahereh Harper/HarperCollins (480 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-06-208553-5 978-0-06-208556-6 e-book Juliette, the girl with the deadly touch, struggles to fit in with the resistance movement that saved her at the end of Shatter Me (2011).

In training to participate in an inevitable war against the Reestablishment, Juliette Ferrars should feel at home at Omega Point. In addition to no longer being a prisoner, she is surrounded by other people with supernatural gifts. Compassionate Castle tries to help her master her abilities, and Kenji tries to help her fit in, but the devastating nature of Juliette’s power hampers her efforts. Additionally, Adam is acting strangely—in large part because of his work with Castle to determine why he is able to touch Juliette safely—which causes difficulties in their relationship. Soon some of her new comrades are abducted while on patrol by soldiers led by Warner’s

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“Readers will quickly note that the indulgent narrator’s voice is at odds with Ben’s increasingly frantic antics, and they will begin to wonder just who is telling the story.” from the boy who cried bigfoot!

father, who demands a meeting with Juliette. The resistance is able to come away from the meeting with a hostage, Warner, who resumes his part in the established love triangle. Too much of the plot relies on Juliette’s withholding of important information and revelations, even against her own judgment.

The bloated relationship drama takes priority over the captive resistance members in the buildup to the climax, which finally brings action before setting up the next novel.

Some quality worldbuilding, but the story only inches along. (Science fiction. 13 & up)

THE BOY WHO CRIED BIGFOOT!

Magoon, Scott Illus. by Magoon, Scott Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) $16.99 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-4424-1257-6 978-1-4424-6866-5 e-book Some boys cry wolf, but to the admiration of one individual, Ben cries Bigfoot.

The opening line by an unseen narrator introduces the young tale-teller: “This is the story of my friend Ben and how we first met.” Events unfold over the course of a day, with cartoon-style art providing definitive clues as to the passage of time. In the morning, Ben rides his bicycle to the top of a hill, where he calls out: “LOOK, EVERYONE! IT’S BIGFOOT!” With the narrator providing commentary, the hilltop becomes a stage onto which other characters enter and exit. Ben is the constant, always trying to provoke response. Readers will quickly note that the indulgent narrator’s voice is at odds with Ben’s increasingly frantic antics, and they will begin to wonder just who is telling the story. Could it be Bigfoot? Indeed! He likes Ben’s determination—and Ben’s bike, which he takes for a little spin that night, leaving a scared Ben behind. Youngsters may at first feel glad that Ben gets his comeuppance when no one rushes to his aid but will soon relent when they see how forlorn Ben looks alone in the dark. Once home, it seems Ben has learned his lesson, although how he determines to tell the truth in the future is bound to leave readers giggling.

Entertaining and clever—and that’s no lie. (Picture book. 4-8)

WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL TEETH?

Markle, Sandra Illus. by McWilliam, Howard Scholastic (32 pp.) $3.99 paperback | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-545-48438-1

compelling combination of imagination and fact. Spread by double-page spread, she introduces animals with unusual choppers, from the beaver’s iron-coated orange incisors to the camel’s worn-out stubs, and explains what they’re used for. Or, in the case of the narwhal’s single tusk, points out that scientists don’t yet know. On the left-hand side of each spread, photographs of the animals emphasize their teeth. On the right, a human child is portrayed with that animal’s teeth. These filmanimation–style illustrations reinforce the fantasy aspect and feature a diverse range of children. A black-haired boy in flipflops lifts a car with his elephant tusks. A girl in a wheelchair picks up soup noodles with her flexible, naked-mole-rat front teeth. The text is presented in small chunks—a paragraph of description and a toothy fact on one page facing a paragraph about what you could do with such teeth. The reading will be a challenge for the intended audience, but the subject so compelling they won’t be able to resist. A backpack-wearing boy with dark-framed glasses and dripping fangs greets a rattlesnake on the cover.

Irresistible. (Informational picture book. 5-9)

TRIXIE TEN

Massini, Sarah Illus. by Massini, Sarah Henry Holt (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-8050-9520-3 A simple tale about large-family appreciation gets cheery art that’s more conceptual than complex.

On the cover, the visual conceit stands front and center in the form of Trixie, whose oval-shaped body is made out of an enlarged fingerprint with all of its natural swirls and curves. “This is Trixie TEN. She has nine brothers and sisters.” The siblings all have fingerprint bodies, each in a signature color, each with unique, scribble-style hair (straight, curly, buzz cut, pigtails) and a trademark trait: “Wanda ONE is always sneezing,” “Felix FIVE laughs all the time,” and “Emily EIGHT has a runny nose but never, ever a Kleenex.” To Trixie, “they are all very annoying,” and at night—after they “count themselves in” to make sure everyone’s there—they’re “so noisy!” Away runs Trixie “in search of somewhere quiet.” The visual concept twinkles when Trixie meets 10 exuberantly loud fingerprint fish and, amusingly, some fingerprint bunnies with rather more siblings than 10. However, the arc is predictable—Trixie misses her family, and when they come to bring her home, she welcomes them with open arms— and the fingerprint-focused artwork varies composition but doesn’t offer any particular aesthetic depth.

Bland, though possibly useful to readers frustrated by a multitude of siblings. (Picture book. 2-5)

What if an animal’s teeth grew into the space where you lost your two front teeth?

Markle chews on this interesting question in this 86

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IN TOO DEEP

McClintock, Norah Darby Creek (224 pp.) $8.95 paperback | $20.95 e-book $27.93 PLB | Mar. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-0702-2 978-1-4677-0964-4 e-book 978-0-7613-8318-5 PLB Series: Robyn Hunter Mysteries, 8 This nifty detective-style mystery series continues with a trip to a resort town and an investigation into a school for troubled boys.

Robyn, 16, has kept up her romance with Nick, the troubled but honest boy she met in the first book of the series, but they are parting for the summer. She travels with her friend Morgan to Morgan’s family cabin, getting a gofer job with the local newspaper and relying on her father’s old friend, Dean, the police chief, for advice and protection. She meets two young men from an establishment run by Larry, who teaches car mechanics to boys who’ve been in trouble with the law—and whose school Nick has joined because he’s suspicious of activities there: A friend’s brother drowned at the school, and Nick wants to find out if the boy’s death might not have been accidental. Robyn decides to help, writing an article for the newspaper as a cover for her investigation. Of course she snoops too closely and gets herself into real danger. Finally, murder looms, with Robyn, Nick and Morgan targeted as the victims. As always, McClintock keeps her narrative and sentence structure simple, fitting nicely with the just-the-facts-ma’am detective genre and making her story accessible to less skilled readers. She makes these accommodations so skillfully that her traditional-style mystery works as well as many written for adults—although everyone, often including the bad guys, remains polite.

Another solid Robyn Hunter outing. (Mystery. 12-16)

CRASH

McMann, Lisa Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (240 pp.) $16.99 | Jan. 8, 2013 978-1-4424-0391-8 Series: Visions, 1 Seeing is believing…unless you’re the only one with the vision.

McMann kicks off the first book in her new Visions series with a bang. On nearly every flat surface—billboards, televisions and road signs—Jules Demarco sees an out-of-control snowplow crash into a restaurant, causing an explosion and killing those inside. With a depressed grandfather who committed suicide and a moody, hoarder father, she’s certain her Italian family will commit her if they find out about her visions.

There’s also their probable anger to contend with: The restaurant in Jules’ vision is their rival pizza parlor, and one of the dead is Sawyer Angotti, her secret, lifelong crush and son of the |

adversarial restaurateur. As in the Wake trilogy, a strong female protagonist pairs with quick pacing, realistic dialogue and the right amount of romance to drive this suspenseful story. Using clues from her ever more frequent visions, social outcast Jules tries to figure out the exact time of the crash in an attempt to thwart it, risking her already shaky standing with Sawyer, her parents and her classmates. In the process of saving lives, she also discovers some dark family secrets. The teen’s occasional lists of five items, such as “Five reasons why I, Jules Demarco, am shunned,” keep the drama on the lighter side.

McMann is on her way to becoming the next queen of supernatural thrillers. (Supernatural thriller. 14 & up)

THE TRAP DOOR

McMann, Lisa Scholastic (192 pp.) $12.99 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-545-38698-2 978-0-545-48457-2 e-book Series: Infinity Ring, 3 Three novels into the series, the Infinity Ring pulls off a shocking twist.

This book earns the year’s strangest compliment: It doesn’t read like a time-travel story. It has all the usual tropes: impossible technology, split-second escapes, glimpses of the future. There’s even an inventive variation on the grandfather paradox. But in its best scenes, it reads like a historical novel. Riq, an African-American boy, has traveled back to a time before Emancipation. In the book’s most frightening passage, he’s standing on an auction block, next to a young woman and her two children. In the moment, it’s possible to believe that they really will be sold as slaves. The historical detail is convincing enough that readers may be genuinely afraid, even if they’ve read dozens of time-travel stories and know how they’re supposed to end. Series fans will find all the fight scenes and riddles they’ve come to expect. (Unfortunately, they’ll also find the terrible dialogue. At one point, there’s a pun involving the phrase “Riq rolls.”) The shifts in tone keep readers on their feet.

Anyone who opens the book looking for science fiction will find the elements that make those stories work, but when readers finish this novel, they may think about picking up a history book. (Science fiction. 8-12)

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WOMEN OF THE FRONTIER 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, and RabbleRousers

violent, bloody death—in her own dorm room—acts as the catalyst for Mallory to finally discover what happened that night with Brian as well as this more recent event—although readers will find this second death far less interesting. The storyline at Monroe dilutes the power of Mallory’s recovery and minimizes Mallory’s relationship with her best friend Colleen, a disappointingly unexplored element.

Still, the primary thriller plot and readers’ investment in Mallory will keep the pages turning. (Thriller. 14 & up)

Miller, Brandon Marie Chicago Review (256 pp.) $19.95 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-883052-97-3

A collection of fascinating tales of women’s trials and triumphs during the years of settlement in the West.

Miller has divided the book into broad topics that gather stories of women’s roles in settlement of the American West.

“Many a Weary Mile” describes the trip west by wagon; “Oh Give Me a Home” explores early pioneering experiences. “A Woman Can Work,” “And Now the Fun Begins” and “Great Expectations for the Future” all examine the careers of women who stepped out of typical female roles of the era. “A Clash of Cultures” tells of the experiences of two young white females captured by Native Americans and two Native American women’s experiences dealing with white culture. The stories strike a nice balance, profiling many different types of experiences.

Each chapter begins with a broad overview of the topic and then narrows down with compelling tales of individuals. Inclusion of first-person narrative through the use of letters and diaries brings the women to life in their own voices, augmented by revealing black-and-white period photographs with very brief captions. Part of this enlightening effort is a reworking of the 1995 Buffalo Gals of the Old West, which was aimed at a somewhat younger audience. While presented as an offering for teens, this work would be equally appropriate for adults.

A thoughtful and attractive presentation of a complex and intriguing topic. (extensive bibliography and endnotes) (Nonfiction. 12 & up)

HYSTERIA

Miranda, Megan Walker (336 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-8027-2310-9 An atmospheric thriller, ripe with tension, overcomes a superfluous subplot.

Her murder of her boyfriend Brian has been ruled an act of self-defense, but Mallory is still trapped by what happened that night. To help her get past the murder, her parents send her to Monroe Prep, the boarding school her father attended. But Mallory can’t escape the feeling that Brian’s mother has followed her or that Brian’s spirit is everywhere. Distracting from this gripping suspense is the unnecessary drama at Monroe, where Mallory acts on her feelings for Reid, the son of her father’s best friend, and fights off the attentions of Jason, the dean of students’ son. Another 88

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UNBROKEN

Morris, Paula Point/Scholastic (304 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-545-41641-2 978-0-545-50907-7 e-book Series: Ruined, 2 In this second installment of the Ruined series, New Yorker Rebecca Brown heads back to New Orleans, where new mysteries—and new ghosts—await.

Rebecca—sure that her dealings with ghosts had ended with the breaking of the family curse—is hoping for a hauntfree return trip to New Orleans to enjoy spring break with her father and her best friend, Ling. But when a handsome, blueeyed boy named Frank appears to her, explaining his need to retrieve a locket from an old, abandoned house in Tremé, Rebecca knows she has to help. Since Frank was supposed to be delivering the locket when he was murdered, he must complete the delivery soon or else be trapped in the ghost world forever. Retrieving a locket sounds like an easy task, until Rebecca realizes that there’s another ghost, the very one who murdered Frank, plus Rebecca’s flesh-and-blood nemesis Toby Sutton, trying to thwart her at every turn. New Orleans is richly evoked, with accurate details, believable local characters and (slightly overdone) dinner-table discussions of gentrification. Rebecca’s love interest, Anton, has a regrettably small role; readers may find themselves wishing for more romantic interludes and less unnecessary recapping of the plot, but this is a small quibble.

A solid and satisfying paranormal mystery, this offering will please existing fans and may win over some new ones to boot. (postscript) (Paranormal thriller. 12 & up)

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“Fraught with high-stakes action and gripping emotion, the final chapters of Lena Haloway’s journey will have readers breathlessly turning the pages.” from requiem

PERCY’S NEIGHBORHOOD

Murphy, Stuart J. Illus. by Murphy, Stuart J. Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $14.95 | $6.95 paperback | $6.99 e-book Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-58089-480-7 978-1-58089-481-4 paperback 978-1-60734-588-6 e-book Series: I See I Learn An openly didactic exploration of the concept of a neighborhood and its community helpers, part of the useful, if unsubtle I See I Learn series.

Percy just wants to go to the park and play, but first, he and his dad have to distribute posters to “community helpers” for the Neighborhood Fun Run. “A community is a place where people live and work together,” says his father. “A neighborhood is the part of the community nearest to you.” Small circular insets on the lower left of each spread highlight a bird’s-eye/ map view of each building they visit (these can be matched to the large neighborhood map on the front endpapers), while a square on the lower right isolates and labels each community helper: Dr. Russo, Firefighter Bates, Officer Ruiz and Mr. Kim, the librarian. (Despite the multicultural names, all the characters are anthropomorphized animals, though Dr. Russo and Officer Ruiz are both apparently women.) In a few brief sentences, readers learn about the basic job of each community helper before Percy finally gets to the park so he can practice for the Fun Run with his friends, all of whom are part of his community. Backmatter includes a visual web of community helpers, some questions to recall and reinforce the lesson, and an author’s note about visual learning.

Pair with Paulette Bourgeois’ In My Neighborhood series for a more in-depth look at some specific community helpers. (Picture book. 2-5)

POSEIDON Earth Shaker

O’Connor, George Illus. by O’Connor, George First Second/Roaring Brook (80 pp.) $9.99 paperback | Mar. 19, 2013 978-1-59643-738-8 Series: Olympians, 5 The sea god steps up to tell his own side of the story in O’Connor’s latest, and least coherent, Olympian portrait.

Sporting a Fu Manchu mustache and rippling thews that would put Conan the Barbarian (never mind Hercules) to shame, the blue-skinned narrator also outdoes even the Dark Knight for grim, hulking presence. A natural storyteller he is not, though, opening his grab bag of reminiscences with the aftermath of the war with the Titans. He relates the gory encounters of Odysseus with Polyphemus and Theseus (portrayed as a thoroughgoing |

villain) with the Minotaur in support of his half-proud observation that “my children have always tended to be monstrous.” He goes on to tally defeats he has suffered at the hands of Athena and his other Olympian relatives, then closes by flashing back to a vague, abortive rebellion against Zeus and, further back yet, to horsey dreams after being eaten by his father Kronos. Jumbled as the overall plot may be, the immediate action is easy to follow in the crisply drawn sequential panels, and O’Connor’s animated, well-researched closing notes help to clarify his scenery-chewing subject’s nature and attributes.

Not the best volume with which to start this firstrate series, but rousing reading for comics fans who like their heroes heavily muscled, unhappy and occasionally splashed with blood. (resource lists, Olympian family tree, study questions) (Graphic mythology. 8-14)

REQUIEM

Oliver, Lauren Harper/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $18.99 | $9.99 e-book | Mar. 5, 2013 978-0-06-201453-5 978-0-06-220296-3 e-book Series: Delirium, 3 Fraught with high-stakes action and gripping emotion, the final chapters of Lena Haloway’s journey will have readers breathlessly turning the pages.

But it is not Lena’s story alone this time around. Her story alternates with that of Hana, Lena’s “cured” best friend, lending depth and intrigue to the novel through the latter’s firsthand account of life in a world vaccinated against the destructive powers of love. Hana struggles to come to terms with both her role in Lena’s disappearance and her own upcoming marriage to a powerful and increasingly frightening young man. Having fled to the Wilds with a band of resistance fighters that includes the only two men she’s ever loved, Lena is faced with struggles of her own. Now that the government can no longer deny the existence of the Invalids, revolution is inevitable, and Lena must reconcile her passion for the rebel cause with her deeply conflicted heart if she hopes to survive. A soldier, a lover, a cousin and a friend, Lena is a rich and achingly human heroine whose strength and vulnerability will earn her a permanent place in readers’ hearts. Before starting, readers should turn off their cellphones and wipe their schedules clean, because once they open the book, they won’t be able to stop.

A dystopian tour de force. (Dystopian romance. 14 & up)

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“Timmy is a classic comic type: the person who’s arrogant for no good reason. But Pastis keeps him from becoming unbearable by turning him into Walter Mitty.” from timmy failure

TIMMY FAILURE Mistakes Were Made

Pastis, Stephan Illus. by Pastis, Stephan Candlewick (304 pp.) $14.99 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-7636-6050-5

The great children’s-book characters can get on your nerves. Eloise is a little spoiled. The Cat in the Hat refuses to listen to anyone else. Timmy Failure would be easy to actually hate.

When he’s taking a group test, he brings down everyone’s score by drawing dot-to-dot pictures with the Scantron bubbles. When his teacher isn’t looking, Timmy goes to the world map and draws the future offices of his detective agency, with a branch on every major continent. Timmy has already started solving crimes. His business is aptly called Total Failure, Inc. His neighbor Gunnar hires him to find some missing candy.

Gunnar’s brother is sitting in bed, with chocolate stains on his face. Candy wrappers are strewn all around. Timmy is stumped, though, because the brother has an alibi: He was eating candy.

Timmy is a classic comic type: the person who’s arrogant for no good reason. But Pastis keeps him from becoming unbearable by turning him into Walter Mitty. He’s a lonely boy whose mother is dating a bowler, and he dreams of being the world’s greatest detective. Who wouldn’t? The Pearls Before Swine cartoonist’s frequent black-and-white illustrations help to cast Timmy’s adventure in an appropriately ironic light.

Timmy may not be one of the great children’s-book characters, but he has greatness in him. Just like all of us.

(Comic mystery. 8-12)

MONKEY ONO

Phillipps, J.C. Illus. by Phillipps, J.C. Viking (40 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 7, 2013 978-0-670-78505-6 Stuffed animal Monkey Ono loves Beach Day (almost as much as making plans…).

Operation Beach Day: “Step One: Hide in beach bag. Step Two: Stow away in car. Step Three: Jump out. ‘BOOM! Beach Day!’ ” But the beach bag containing Monkey Ono is left behind!

A tantrum ensues…until “BANANZA!” He thinks of a new plan.

He will get Telly the dog to sniff the boy’s sock in the hopes that Telly will be inspired to track the boy to the beach—with Monkey Ono on his back. Alas, Telly just buries Monkey Ono in the sandbox. A flush down the toilet doesn’t get Monkey Ono to the beach. Using the hammock as a slingshot only gets him tangled in the neighbor’s laundry (the underwear, of course).

He’ll never get to build sand castles or soak his feet or watch the fish…unless, with the help of Telly and Java the cat (and 90

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some creativity): “BOOM! BEACH DAY!” At home. Phillipps’ exuberant cut-paper collage illustrations feature Monkey Ono’s hand-drawn plans for beach success as well as occasional speech balloons. The results of each plan will have listeners in stitches.

They will identify with his enthusiasm and learn a thing or two about creativity and cooperation.

Everyone loves a beach day, and they’ll love Monkey Ono too—Bananza! (Picture book. 2-6)

CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE REVOLTING REVENGE OF THE RADIOACTIVE ROBOBOXERS

Pilkey, Dav Illus. by Pilkey, Dav Scholastic (224 pp.) $9.99 | Jan. 15, 2013 978-0-545-17536-4 Series: Captain Underpants, 10

Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.

The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”).

It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.

Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)

THE ORPHAN AND THE POLAR BEAR

Qalinaq, Sakiasi Illus. by Widermann, Eva Inhabit Media (40 pp.) $13.95 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-92656-944-4

An Inuit folktale of an orphan boy who is trained by polar bears to become a man and a capable hunter.

Long ago, when people didn’t have rifles, they hunted walrus using harpoons. Each day, an orphan boy accompanies the

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hunters, but at the end of each hunt, they abandon him. He walks the long way back to camp, following the tracks of the dog teams. One day, he hears someone behind him; it’s a huge polar bear who transforms himself into a man and tells the boy to return with him to the island of his bear camp. There the bear teaches him the skills to survive, including seal hunting. A large bear that repeatedly bullies him and takes his catch proves to be his greatest challenge, but his new skills have also taught him courage. The foreword from the publisher credits Canadian North storytelling traditions, the storyteller and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and Nunavut government, with whom they worked to make the book true to Inuit culture. The blue-toned illustrations realistically portray the landscape, while the text reads with the voice of a storyteller.

An evocative story that provides a window into an often-ignored culture. (Picture book/folklore. 7-9)

CODE

Reichs, Kathy; Reichs, Brendan Putnam (416 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 12, 2013 978-1-59514-412-6 Series: Virals, 3 In this third Virals thriller, the focus is on Tory Brennan (niece of Temperance Brennan, hero of Reichs’ Bones books for adults) and her friends as they continue to explore their special wolf powers, acquired by accident but growing stronger every day.

Tory would like nothing better than to spend time with her friends prowling the barrier islands of Charleston, S.C. It’s too bad her dad’s irritating, socially conscious girlfriend insists on having Tory make her debut at this year’s cotillion, an event that holds no interest for this 14-year-old tomboy. Escaping to participate in a new game with her friends seems like a lark, as they uncover their first cache in what appears to be a treasure hunt.

But things turn serious when each successive discovered cache turns more and more dangerous, putting not just Tory and her friends at risk, but their families as well. It’s a race against time to find the self-proclaimed Gamemaster and put a stop to this deadly game before an oncoming hurricane strikes Charleston, wiping out his tracks forever and setting him free to play his fatal game again…and again. More than just a Bones Jr., more than just an exploration of heightened natural abilities, this series mixes thrills with timeless coming-of-age themes, teasing the intellect with well-drawn characters and keeping the pages turning with a well-tuned pace.

Another successful adventure. (Science fiction/thriller. 10 & up)

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SWEET 16 TO LIFE

Reid, Kimberly Dafina/Kensington (256 pp.) $9.95 paperback | Jan. 29, 2013 978-0-7582-6742-9 Series: Langdon Prep Chanti Evans is back in another episode of street-smart crime-solving in the Langdon Prep series.

This third entry keeps her efforts close to home in more ways than one.

The story opens fast, with Chanti responding to a fire a few doors away. It doesn’t take much to alert her to the possibility that this episode is not what it seems. Despite her promises to her vice-cop mother, Lana, and the damage her investigations have done to her relationship with would-be love Marco, she gets deeply involved in her friend MJ’s troubles with her old gang. In between homework and friends, Chanti worries about arson and potential violence. As if this is not enough to keep a girl busy in the days before her 16th birthday, Chanti and her mother find their close relationship strained when Chanti’s long-absent father starts trying to contact them, resulting in more evasions by Lana about her parentage. Reid continues the snappy dialogue and clever storytelling of the previous volumes, and readers will detect real growth in Chanti as she works her way through her difficulties. There is a large cast to keep straight, and the crime itself is a bit complicated for a teen sleuth, but the secondary characters add nicely to the narrative, and there are times when Chanti’s insight is laugh-out-loud humorous.

A cliffhanger ending will have readers clamoring for more. (Mystery. 12 & up)

WANT TO BE IN A BAND?

Roche, Suzzy Illus. by Potter, Giselle Schwartz & Wade/Random (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-375-86879-5 While many children may answer the titular question in the affirmative, it seems likely that only (some) adults will appreciate the behind-the-scenes glimpse of one group’s genesis offered by quirky songstress Roche.

Although she begins by suggesting that, in general, kids who like to make noise may be budding musicians, Roche’s perspective quickly becomes specific. If you want to be in a band, “you’ll need two interesting, smart older sisters who can play guitars and sing.” She’s also a wee bit behind the times: The band she suggests emulating is the Beatles (though showing the dog in a shaggy wig as Ringo is worth a giggle—at least to grownups, who’ll know who he is). Roche does provide, and reiterate, some pragmatic advice: Aspiring musicians will need to practice, practice, practice. But it’s buried in an arch, overlong text with minimal child appeal. Potter’s distinctive watercolor-and-ink

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illustrations feature flat-faced characters and straightforward compositions, effectively conveying the action and creating a retro vibe. This suits Roche’s somewhat nostalgic view of growing up and getting famous perfectly, but unfortunately, it does little to inject energy or interest.

Fans of the Roches will appreciate in-jokes, like the mention of strawberry-apricot pie, but ultimately, this chronicle of perfecting skills and performing for ever larger audiences is too narrowly focused to provide encouragement, entertainment or inspiration. (Picture book. 6-8)

THE FOURTH STALL: PART III

Rylander, Chris Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins (304 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-06-212005-2 978-0-06-212007-6 e-book

huge Shopwells outside town behave like a smiling zombie, but nearly all the smaller local businesses are closed and papered over with Shopwells fliers. Moreover, her new boss stonewalls her inquiries, and when she visits the store, she finds herself buying a cartload of junky goods she normally wouldn’t have touched. What is going on? Amid a whirl of stolen evidence, veiled threats and an attempted kidnapping, Sherri investigates a nefarious scheme worthy of conspiracy theories: “I mean,” says one employee, “how else do you get people to work minimum wage with no overtime, no health benefits, stocking shelves, and like it?” In the meantime, she finds hot-and-heavy romance with a local lad, threatening her relationship with her Toronto boyfriend.

The romantic subplot is really shoehorned in, but it lightens the overall tone of this briskly paced mystery.

(Light horror. 13-16)

HERE COME THE HUMPBACKS!

In the third and final installment of the Fourth Stall saga, Mac and Vince are pulled back into the world of organized crime at their middle school.

Life seemed simple for a while. Seventh grade had started, and Mac and Vince were no longer running their syndicate out of the fourth stall in the east-wing boys’ bathroom. Their service had been to help middle schoolers with their problems… for a price. But Jimmy Two-Tone moves in to reopen it, offering a 15-percent cut to Mac and Vince since they had built the business in the first place. “[R]isk-free money,” Mac thinks, until Jimmy’s operation gets out of hand, and Jimmy finds himself in over his head. All of a sudden a higher power makes a play, demanding a repayment of debts along with permanent records on every student at the school, including addresses, grades and disciplinary records, loaded onto a flash drive. The story becomes so diffuse, implausible and unpleasant that readers will find all characters unlikable by the end. A series that seemed promising in the first volume and improving in the second becomes muddled here, boding ill for the hint of future volumes when Mac gets to high school.

Readers of the previous installments will be eager to see how it all plays out, but they may well be disappointed.

(Fiction. 8-12)

THE LEWTON EXPERIMENT

Sa, Rachel Tradewind Books (144 pp.) $12.95 paperback | Feb. 15, 2013 978-1-896580-97-5

Sayre, April Pulley Illus. by Hogan, Jamie Charlesbridge (40 pp.) $17.95 | $7.95 paperback | $6.99 e-book Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-58089-405-0 978-1-58089-406-7 paperback 978-1-60734-586-2 e-book

“Flippers paddle. Flukes push. In every ocean on Earth, humpback whales swim.” So begins this introduction to humpback migration.

Sayre structures her tale around a mother whale, beginning as she is about to give birth and migrate north to colder waters with her calf. Their journey will be long, and they will face many dangers, man-made and natural. The primary text features fairly short sentences, onomatopoeia and simple vocabulary to engage younger readers. Italicized asides interspersed throughout go into greater depth for older children and their grown-ups, discussing whale songs, food sources and survival challenges to name just a few. Deep blues and greens highlighted with white crests are rendered in charcoal and pastel on sanded paper, providing a textural immediacy that plunges readers into the ocean.

The occasional placement of black text over Hogan’s appropriately murky depths occasionally makes reading a challenge. A conclusion provides more detailed information on migration and studying whales.

There’s plenty of drama and appeal in this primarygrade introduction. (Informational picture book. 5-8)

A budding journalist, almost 18, takes an internship at a small-town newspaper and discovers ugly doings afoot at the big-box store recently opened nearby.

Hardly has Sherri stepped off the bus than her reporter’s antennae go up: Not only does everyone who works at the 92

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“The illustrations do a remarkable job of conveying war-torn London, with one striking, wordless spread showing London in blackout mode, the shadow of St. Paul’s looming above.” from war dogs

WAR DOGS Churchill & Rufus

Selbert, Kathryn Illus. by Selbert, Kathryn Charlesbridge (48 pp.) $17.95 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-58089-414-2 978-1-60734-598-5 e-book An introductory look at Winston Churchill and his notable place in British history uses a clever narrative device that focuses on his miniature poodle, Rufus.

Churchill was often compared to a bulldog due to his tenacity, and one of his nicknames was the British Bulldog. The book’s title refers to both Churchill and his beloved pet, who accompanied the great leader throughout the war years. The touching story follows Churchill from 1940-45, summarizing his work leading the war effort in England with a succinct and accessible text. Evocative illustrations in acrylic and collage incorporate short quotations from Churchill, designed to look like typewritten notes pinned to the pages. The illustrations do a remarkable job of conveying war-torn London, with one striking, wordless spread showing London in blackout mode, the shadow of St. Paul’s looming above. At war’s end, Churchill and Rufus are shown from the back, sitting near their country home, “two war dogs” resting at last. By focusing closely on Churchill and his pet, Selbert effectively provides a starting point for children to begin to understand the complexities of World War II. The combination of thoughtful design, compelling illustrations and a winsome canine companion make this beginning biography stand out. (timeline, afterword, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-12)

QUEST FOR THE SPARK Book Three

Sniegoski, Tom Illus. by Smith, Jeff Graphix/Scholastic (288 pp.) $10.99 paperback | Jan. 1, 2013 978-0-545-14106-2 Series: Bone, 3

have enslaved most of a human tribe. This final volume does not disappoint, twisting and turning rapidly to a wholly satisfying— although quickly resolved—conclusion. The Bone universe has smoothly spread out from a serialized graphic-novel epic to a thrill-ride prose trilogy, an accomplishment not often seen nor executed so well. Fear not, fans: A new Bone adventure is notso-subtly hinted at as this installment draws to a close.

Thrills, chills, twists and turns, this series ender offers it all. (Fantasy. 9-13)

WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING

Spinelli, Eileen Illus. by Johnson, David Eerdmans (26 pp.) $16.00 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-8028-5303-5

What do you do when no one is watching?

A girl might be shy, but it doesn’t mean she can’t be brave and adventurous when no one can see her! This appealing heroine tries to disappear when other people are around, but when she is alone or with her best friend, she can do almost anything. Rhymed text describes both her attempts to avoid detection (“I hide like the cat alongside the big chair. / I scrunch myself down and pretend I’m not there”) and her plucky, bold side (“I’m brave as a bear in a cave in the dark. / I wrestle gorilla. / I tickle white shark”).

Digitally manipulated ink-and-watercolor pictures portray the girl doing her best to remain out of sight in company and shining when she is alone and at her effervescent best. Shyness is presented in a nonjudgmental way here, as a personality characteristic that doesn’t have to be limiting. Although the pictures are sparkling and energetic, it is difficult to ignore the girl’s impossibly long, flowing shoelaces; while an appealing stylistic touch, children accustomed to Velcro will find them distracting, and their parents will find them unsafe. This is a small detail however, and shy children will feel accepted and invigorated by the girl’s ways of accepting and mitigating her reserve.

A lovely way to promote acceptance of introverts by themselves and others. (Picture book. 3-7)

The lovably motley questing crew returns for their final stand against the looming powers of the Nacht.

Young turnip farmer–cum-hero Tom Elm has finally reached the arduous apex of his journey: The scattered pieces of the Spark are quickly coming together, as are all of the beings needed to complete his epic quest. A charmingly quirky assortment of dragons, animals, a warrior, Bones and a shape-shifting forest spirit must work together to save the fate of their world.

They must keep the horrible dragon named the Nacht from taking over the realm and shrouding all they know in permanent, nightmarish blackness. This is no simple feat, and they must battle truly frightening foes on their way to the final showdown: a colony of possessed, bloodthirsty giant bats that |

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FUTUREDAZE An Anthology of YA Science Fiction Strom-Martin, Hannah; Underwood, Erin--Eds. Underwords (290 pp.) $14.95 paperback | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-9847824-0-8

A low-wattage collection of original stories and poems, as unmemorable as it is unappealingly titled.

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“Ghahremani’s picture-book debut features incredible hand-lettering and muted, textured tones that are Etsy-hipster to the max, but they work well in this quiet nature story.” from what will hatch?

science fiction for teen readers, and its production costs were covered by a Kickstarter campaign. The editors gather a dozen poems and 21 stories from a stable of contributors who, after headliners Jack McDevitt and Nancy Holder, will be largely unknown even to widely read fans of the genre. The tales place their characters aboard spacecraft or space stations, on other worlds or in future dystopias, but only rarely do the writers capture a credibly adolescent voice or sensibility. Standouts in this department are the Heinlein-esque “The Stars Beneath Our Feet,” by Stephen D. Covey & Sandra McDonald, about a first date/joyride in space gone wrong, and Camille Alexa’s portrait of a teen traumatized by a cyberspace assault (“Over It”). Along with a few attempts to craft futuristic slang, only Lavie Tidhar’s fragmentary tale of Tel Aviv invaded by successive waves of aliens, doppelgangers, zombies and carnivorous plants (“The Myriad Dangers”) effectively lightens the overall earnest tone. Aside from fictional aliens and modified humans, occasional references to dark skin (“Out of the Silent Sea,” Dale Lucas) are the only signs of ethnic diversity.

Most of the free-verse poetry makes only oblique, at best, references to science-fictional themes.

A change of pace from the teeming swarms of fantasy and paranormal romance but too underpowered to achieve escape velocity. (author bios) (Science fiction/short stories. 12-14)

KENYA’S SONG

Trice, Linda Illus. by Johnson, Pamela Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $17.95 | $6.99 e-book | Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-57091-846-9 978-1-57091-847-6 paperback 978-1-60734-589-3 e-book

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Eggs come in many different shapes and sizes, but the most important question to young, curious minds is what will hatch?

Ward and Ghahremani stage an oviparous guessing game, using die cuts to draw attention to each different kind of egg.

Sparse textual clues tease readers (“Warm seat. / What will hatch?”), while expansive visual spreads show snowy mountaintops and a male penguin’s webbed toes, with die-cut egg perched atop. When readers turn the page, the die cuts seamlessly (for the most part) blend into the revealed answer scene (in this case, it becomes the belly of the presumed mother). Birds are the most obvious egg-layers of choice, but turtles, caterpillars, crocodiles and even a platypus get their chance to shine. Ghahremani’s picture-book debut features incredible hand-lettering and muted, textured tones that are Etsy-hipster to the max, but they work well in this quiet nature story. Backmatter provides additional information on each animal, including the amount of time spent in an egg, plus the number of possible siblings. A simple life cycle of a chick is also appended.

Science for the very young is done best through joyous learning; education will certainly hatch from these pages.

(Picture book. 2-5)

IVY TAKES CARE

Kenya’s homework assignment is to share her favorite song with her class.

Can she find the perfect one? A family full of music and laughter tries to help young Kenya find a song to share with her classmates. Her father takes her to the Caribbean Cultural Center, where rooms are dedicated to different countries. Kenya visits rooms filled with the music of Trinidad, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, yet she still cannot choose a favorite song. What will she present to her classroom? A followup to Kenya’s Word (2006), this book cannot quite decide its focus.

Readers learn the names of musical genres, instruments and the Caribbean nations represented in Kenya’s neighborhood. The illustrations are adequate but provide scarce clues to each culture aside from brief references to dances or instruments. The musical theme for the story is obvious, yet it is missing melodic words or a rhythmic cadence to the lengthy text. Kenya’s family, however, proves to be helpful, talented and full of joyful music, surprising her classmates with a new song.

While this provides a glimpse of a loving family living in a multicultural neighborhood, it misses the mark to truly celebrate Caribbean music and diversity. (Picture book. 4-8)

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WHAT WILL HATCH?

Ward, Jennifer Illus. by Ghahremani, Susie Walker (40 pp.) $12.99 | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-8027-2311-6

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Wells, Rosemary Illus. by LaMarche, Jim Candlewick (208 pp.) $15.99 | Feb. 26, 2013 978-0-7636-5352-1

Seemingly plucked from a middleof–last-century bookshelf, this wholesome tale of a spunky fifth-grade girl’s experiences in rural Nevada has a paintby-numbers feel that keeps it from living up to the author’s illustrious reputation.

Readers meet Ivy as she bikes up a hill to visit her friend Annie, stopping along the way to rescue a turtle that’s been run over. While Annie and Ivy’s relationship plays a role in the plot, Ivy’s love of animals and dreams for the future quickly become the focus. Looking for a way to earn some money, Ivy decides to offer her services as an animal sitter. While life was likely simpler in 1949, at least in some ways, the ease with which Ivy finds jobs and the local vet’s trust in her abilities (he allows her to give a wild fox an injection) will both seem a mite unlikely to contemporary readers. A pesky neighbor boy creates some unexpected problems, but overall, it’s smooth sailing with an especially happy ending (no dead dogs here). Although the tone is spot-on, with endearingly folksy dialogue and an innocent

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worldview, the contrived plot and limited character development will likely keep readers from caring much about Ivy. Disappointingly bland fare, this might please enthusiastic animal lovers or parents who prefer squeaky-clean stories but will leave most other readers wishing for more.

(Historical fiction. 8-10)

GOD GAVE US EASTER

Bergren, Lisa Tawn Illus. by Bryant, Laura J. WaterBrook (40 pp.) $10.99 | Jan. 15, 2013 978-0-307-73072-5 Series: God Gave Us You

PIVOT POINT

West, Kasie HarperTeen (352 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 12, 2013 978-0-06-211737-3 978-0-06-211740-3 e-book Clairvoyant Addison Coleman must choose between two futures and two love interests.

Addie has the ability to see potential futures. Her powers are very specific: She can only see her own futures and only what will happen if she makes a decision. When her parents decide to divorce, her father drops a bombshell on her—he intends to leave the secret community that is home to the paranormal and live among the normal people. In order to decide whom she will live with, Addie performs a Search that, in alternating chapters, reveals Addie’s two possible futures. The plotting is deft enough that the stories interweave without being repetitive, and both give clues to a mystery Addie’s father is investigating that involves dead teenage girls from the Compound. If Addie stays, she will be romanced by handsome quarterback and all-around-mostpopular boy in school Duke Rivers. If she leaves, she befriends the thoughtful, witty Trevor—who was quarterback for his school before an injury while playing against Duke’s team. Both love interests are developed well, and readers will be able to see Addie with either. The worldbuilding isn’t as on point—the Compound raises logistical questions that are glossed over for the sake of the plot’s strong pace. Minor missteps are easy to forgive given the underlying suspense of multiple mysteries.

West’s debut showcases riveting storytelling. (Paranormal romance. 13 & up)

Bergren and Bryant attempt to explain Easter to young children in a gentle, nonthreatening manner, with partial success.

When Little Cub questions her father about Easter, Papa Bear explains the religious significance of the holiday in various symbolic ways to his cub. He uses familiar things from their world, such as an egg and a fallen tree, to draw parallels with aspects of the Christian story. Papa Bear discusses his close relationships with Jesus and God, encouraging Little Cub to communicate with God on her own. The theme focuses on the renewal of life and the positive aspects of loving God and Jesus.

Easter is presented as a celebration of eternal life, but the story skirts the issue of the crucifixion entirely. Some adults will find this an inadequate or even dishonest approach to the Easter story, but others will appreciate the calm and soothing text as a way to begin to understand a difficult subject. Bryant’s charming watercolor illustrations of the polar bear family, their cozy home and snowy forest scenes add to the overall mellow effect.

Fans of this popular series will find this a rewarding addition to family Easter celebrations. (Religion/picture book. 3-6)

MARLEY AND THE GREAT EASTER EGG HUNT

Grogan, John Illus. by Cowdrey, Richard Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $9.99 | Feb. 1, 2013 978-0-06-212524-8

Yet another story about Marley the misbehaving Labrador retriever; here he runs rampant through the town Easter egg hunt.

Marley’s been running away from his family and into mischief in a rapidly growing collection of Marley children’s books, spinoffs of Grogan’s best-selling book for adults. Though Grogan’s name appears on the cover and title page, the text for this story is actually written by Natalie Engel on his behalf. The frenetic plot follows Marley and his family as they participate in the Easter egg hunt, trying to find one extra-large egg hidden by the town’s mayor. Marley crashes and bashes his way around town, breaking raw eggs and covering himself in confetti and ribbons as he tries to capture the special egg prize and his family tries to capture him. In an odd conclusion, the mayor virtually hands Marley the winning egg, which was illogically and |

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improbably concealed in the mayor’s top hat. The illustrations convey lots of activity, with cheery Marley in constant motion, though the slapstick humor tries too hard to be funny, and human characters are largely devoid of personality.

Even a well-loved, popular main character can’t save a story with frantic action, lame jokes and a plodding plot.

(Picture book. 3-6)

BETTY BUNNY DIDN’T DO IT

Kaplan, Michael B. Illus. by Jorish, Stéphane Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 21, 2013 978-0-8037-3858-4 Series: Betty Bunny, 3

bears and mountains. He finds gigantic, tree-sized clover and drives a train of “crunchy carrots as big as railroad cars,” with carrot-shaped fish swimming through an ocean of lettuce. But then Oh So grows lonely and wishes for companionship, returning to his former tiny size and meeting a pretty, long-lashed bunny who offers him a clover blossom of his own in a gentle, satisfying conclusion. Fluorescent colors, unusual perspectives and an irresistible, blue-eyed bunny with a glowing pink nose draw readers in, but it’s the emotional flow of the text and the wildly exuberant ego exploration that make this fanciful story memorable.

Keep dreaming, little Oh So. You are oh so sweet. (Picture book. 2-5)

THE LITTLE GRAY BUNNY

An inventive plot and charming illustrations depict an irrepressible main character who continues to be quite a handful: Betty Bunny does it again.

In her third starring role in this successful series, Betty Bunny breaks a lamp when she plays with her ball in the house.

Her misdeed leads to a string of lies that are laugh-out-loud funny, as she blames both her lying and the broken lamp on the Tooth Fairy. Her imaginative excuses will amuse both children and adults with their humor and creativity. Once again, Kaplan captures the humorous dynamics of a large family, with subtle lessons about tattling, truth-telling and saving the feelings of others by not stating the truth if it will hurt someone’s feelings.

Though the patient parents explain the rules about truth-telling, the text is never preachy or moralistic. Betty Bunny’s innocent, intelligent personality is captivating; she’s naughty but lovable all at the same time, just like a real child. Jorisch’s enchanting watercolor illustrations capture Betty’s bouncy behavior and her family’s reactions with delightful flair, from the carrotshaped hair ornament on Betty Bunny’s head to the hint of a mustache on the teenage brother’s suitably snide upper lip.

Betty Bunny is a handful: a strong heroine who makes readers laugh as she learns a little more with each addition to the series. (Picture book. 3-7)

OH SO TINY BUNNY

Kirk, David Illus. by Kirk, David Feiwel & Friends (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-1-250-01688-1

McGrath, Barbara Barbieri Illus. by Kim, Violet Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $16.95 | $7.95 paperback | $6.99 e-book Feb. 1, 2013 978-1-58089-394-7 978-1-58089-395-4 paperback 978-1-60734-590-9 e-book McGrath extends her series of holiday-themed retellings of “The Little Red Hen” with her third entry, this time focusing on Easter.

On an old-fashioned farm, a gray bunny is getting ready for Easter in the barn where he lives with his three friends: a lamb, a turtle and a duck. The bunny is resourceful and industrious, like his Little Red Hen counterpart, but the three friends are predictably lazy and self-involved. The lamb focuses on finding more hay, the turtle hides and plays peekaboo, and the duck searches for any sort of water for swimming. The text follows the familiar structure of the traditional tale, with lots of humor woven in, including silly responses from the turtle and clever rejoinders from the bunny. (“These creatures have no artistic imagination.”) Cartoon-style illustrations in watercolor, pen and gouache add zing with a bright palette of springtime colors and an individual personality for each character. The lazy friends get their comeuppance just as in the original story, when the bunny enjoys the Easter goodies and the friends are stuck with just-hatched, mischievous chicks instead of cupcakes and jelly beans.

An amusing tale, especially for children already familiar with the original folk tale. (Picture book. 3-6)

A tiny bunny’s nighttime flights of fancy soar straight up to the stars.

Oh So Tiny (Oh So for short) starts off his story as just another little bunny playing with ordinary garden creatures.

But he longs to be big—as a dragon, a forest and even a mountain, echoing the feelings of the 2- and 3-year-olds who will grab onto this story and demand repeated rereadings. As Oh So’s fantasy expands, he becomes taller than a forest and bigger than 96

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“A quick course in rocket science and aerodynamics features ‘50sstyle retro illustrations and rrrrobust narrrration in a Scots accent.” from junior astronaut

CHESTER’S COLORFUL EASTER EGGS

Smythe, Theresa Illus. by Smythe, Theresa Henry Holt (24 pp.) $12.99 | Feb. 5, 2013 978-0-8050-9326-1

Little Chester is a charming bunny boy getting ready for an Easter egg hunt in this pleasant, thoughtfully designed story just right for younger preschoolers.

Chester prepares six hard-boiled eggs in his kitchen and then dyes them different colors, decorating and hiding them for his friends to find. Each egg is shown in an inset with the name of the color spelled out in colored display type, with a larger illustration showing Chester hiding the egg. In a cheery conclusion, the six friends line up their eggs just as a rainbow appears, highlighting the rainbow spectrum of Chester’s Easter surprise.

Collage illustrations in bold, bright hues use simple shapes and interesting textures to create an appealing artistic presentation that will appeal to young children. Chester himself is a dapper dude in a yellow bowtie and plaid shirt, with bold whiskers and a winsome smile. His friends come in all sizes and shapes, from a big, brown lion to a tiny mouse, creating a good-natured group that gives the impression of diversity.

A sweet treat for an Easter basket or for sharing before decorating Easter eggs. (Picture book. 2-5)

interactive e-books JUNIOR ASTRONAUT Breaking Through the Space Barrier

Crank Publishing Ltd & Immediate Media Company Immediate Media Company $2.99 | Oct. 30, 2012 1.0.1; Nov. 2, 2012

A quick course in rocket science and aerodynamics features ’50s-style retro illustrations and rrrrobust narrrration in a Scots accent.

As introduction, readers are invited to wave a sheet of paper to experience air resistance, then fold it into an airplane (step diagrams provided) and “[t]hrow it as hard as you can into the sky and see how you get on” to watch gravity in action. A flashback through history offers interactive ganders at gunpowder and early rockets. This is followed by further demonstrations (with very simple animations) that show how modern rockets use controlled thrust, stabilizing fins and stages to counter atmospheric effects, the aforementioned gravity and even changes in the center of gravity to reach outer space. Tapping occasional “More Science!” tabs opens sidebars with additional details. A |

final exam of sorts challenges readers to assemble a rocket from correctly chosen parts, which leads to a dramatic takeoff and a congratulatory “Jnr Astronaut” designation. American readers may miss English equivalents to the metric measurements, but this may prove a salutary reminder that the rest of the world eschews pounds and miles. Though a three-round bout with Mexican wrestler “El Gravitino” partway along is more distracting than instructive, children will come away with a firm grasp of rocketry’s basic principles as well as some relevant physics, such as the difference between “mass” and “weight.”

Mission most definitely accomplished, thanks to lucid explanations and a steady focus on participatory instruction. (iPad informational app. 6-8)

RITA THE LIZARD

Grau, Irene Blasco Illus. by Grau, Irene Blasco Irene Blasco Grau $2.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 1.0; Nov. 1, 2012 Bursting with life in its clever visuals and antic sense of play, an abundance of activity is on offer in this story about a

fun-loving red lizard.

Rita, the titular flat, red lizard, is first seen lounging on the beach as a paper sailboat passes by. “Rita thinks she is a chameleon just like her Uncle William,” but her bright, unchanging color and strange habits (like snoring while she sleeps on a zebra) don’t exactly make her blend into the background. The identity crisis is solved with the help of her animal friends, and the whole affair concludes with a festive dance party as Rita celebrates who she really is. The message is carefully inserted into dense layers of gorgeously textured art and buoyed by plenty of surrealist touches. A giraffe wears boots; a duck flies by, calmly embedded within a hot-air balloon; and a photo on a wall suddenly sprouts a long, stringy mustache. The app’s animations and extra features are beautifully presented and fit right in with the rest of the story. If that weren’t enough, each page has an optional countdown that tells readers exactly how many interactive goodies are available. Activate all of them and an award notification pops up that, remarkably, doesn’t break up the flow of the story.

Rita’s realization that being a lizard is great is carried effortlessly by all the terrific visual asides along the way. (iPad storybook app. 3-10)

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“Rhythm-and-blues singer Brandy Norwood joins her brother and parents to tell an animated story about competing musical tastes.” from fam bam

3 LITTLE PIGGIES

Kid’s Academy Kid’s Academy $1.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 1.0.0; Nov. 1, 2012

Safe, serviceable and completely dull, this soft-edged version of the oftadapted pigs-in–real estate tale doesn’t distinguish itself amid the dozens that also tell the same story.

Though it does a fine job of presentation, with cute, brightly colored, clean art and animation, the three little pigs in this story seem to have one mode: grinning toddler. They squeak and giggle like very young children, instead of appearing worried, as hunted homebuilders should. Even their cutesy names are enough to make readers’ foreheads furrow: Sniff-Sniff, Snaff-Snaff and Snuff-Snuff. Like many apps, this stuffs the screen with objects that animate when pressed: a pig scarecrow, the three houses and the interior items of Snaff-Snaff ’s spiffy brick abode. There are a few annoyances: Each page turn pulls up a “Loading...” screen that only lasts a second or two, but that really shouldn’t be there at all. Extra options are limited to male or female narrators, and there’s no way to skip to a specific page.

But the app’s biggest problem isn’t in design or execution, it’s in competition. As a public-domain work, “Three Little Pigs” has become the go-to story for children’s storybook-app developers to tackle, and the market is well beyond saturated.

As it stands against the huff-and-puff of the App Store’s inventory, it may as well be made of straw. (incompatible with iPad 1) (iPad storybook app. 2-5)

MY MONSTER MAYHEM

Pouroulis, Anita Illus. by Walker, Sholto Digital Leaf $4.99 | Oct. 21, 2012 1.0.0; Oct. 21, 2012

An interactive introduction to a motley crew of mischievous monsters whose titular mayhem lands a young girl in trou-

ble with her mum.

Whether it is doors slamming, a messy wardrobe or bath water splashed on the floor, this app’s young heroine gets the blame. She tries to explain it’s a monster behind the ruckus and that she’s doing her best to subdue them. Each monster is playfully depicted over two to three screens that highlight its idiosyncrasies. These range from goofy, such as the Scrap-adapadocus, who loves leftover food, to the borderline inappropriate monster that “loves to expose what’s under his clothes” (lots of flab but nothing more). Users can select one of two female, British-accented narrators, a young girl and an older woman, for this rhyming text, which stretches thin at points but avoids any noticeable holes. Interactivity abounds with tappable elements and silly sound effects waiting to be discovered. There is 98

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a lengthy loading time between each screen, which is tiresome and affects navigation; it’s hard to fast-forward past a monster or return to a favorite. A game runs throughout the app, challenging users to find 20 hidden minimonsters; finding them all unlocks a bonus (particularly difficult) puzzle activity.

Slight but fun enough. (iPad storybook app. 4-7)

FAM BAM Got to Have Music

See Here Studios; RnB Productions See Here Studios $2.99 | Oct. 24, 2012 1.0; Oct. 24, 2012 Rhythm-and-blues singer Brandy Norwood joins her brother and parents to tell an animated story about compet-

ing musical tastes.

This fam bam (a tightknit family, according to one definition in an urban dictionary) has music in their blood. Dad likes inspirational tunes, mom’s a jazz enthusiast, Brandy sings R&B, RJ likes hip hop, and Brad—the Yorkie-looking canine narrator—prefers opera. All of the family members sing their favorite genres as they go about their various tasks during the day.

But when they’re all together, they argue about whose music is superior. The conflict resolves one night when their dinnertime conversation takes on a new twist, and by the end of the story, they’re all harmonizing. Each page offers some sort of animation, but interaction is mostly limited to the characters, all of which sing, talk or grouse when tapped. The vibrantly colored pages are crammed with simple illustrations, and of course, there are various musical accompaniments the whole way through. On certain screens, sound effects and/or music linger until the page is turned, which can become tiresome if reading is temporarily interrupted. Both the platform and the story are simple, but the app does have some charm.

Not the most inventive tale, but an earnest one that addresses the idea of respecting others’ musical palates.

Brandy fans will love it. (iPad storybook app. 3-6)

VICTOR’S COLD

SlimCricket SlimCricket $1.99 | Nov. 13, 2012 2.0.0; Nov. 13, 2012

A pleasant animated story with some satisfying features but a poor sense of geography.

When Little Victor’s penguin mommy leaves, he is miserable and cold, so his dad and some other cold-climate animals suggest different ideas to warm him up. “When you’re cold, you’ve got to PLAY!” says the seal, while the polar bear’s suggestion is “you’ve got to DANCE” (the app is irritatingly bi-polar; Victor also seeks shelter in a very un-Antarctic igloo). Predictably, nothing works

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until Mommy arrives home and picks Little Victor up, both warming him and giving him a chance to reflect on his day: “I’ve made lots of new friends!” The animation and 3-D illustrations are simple but effective, and interactive elements include a matching activity, I-Spy activities and wiping the “frost” off the screen so that the images show up clearly. A little cricket hides on some pages, which can be somewhat distracting. Optional narration is offered in French and English, and there is a sidebar picture menu for easy navigation. The sound effects and music add to the experience, but the multicast narration is somewhat choppy. On one page, Victor disappears from the screen for an alarmingly long time as he floats down in the sea, which might distress sensitive little ones.

A solid effort, geography and glitches notwithstanding. (iPad storybook app. 2-5)

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT Solovyev, Michael MediaProfit $1.99 | Nov. 5, 2012 1.1; Nov. 16, 2012

A prosaic digital version of the classic British nursery rhyme.

It’s a shame that this app offers very few animated or tactile features that support the text, since the story is packed with action verbs. Yes, there are a few tap-sensitive features—tinkling bells, shutters that open and close, the tip of a hat, for example—but there are few interactive elements that match the narrative. Readers will likely try to toss the dog, chase the mouse or milk the cow, but to no avail. Illustrations are easy on the eyes, sporting muted watercolorlike backgrounds with characters and objects providing a bit of soothing contrast. There are several bonus features, which include coloring scene shots, putting together simple puzzles or matching objects/characters with their silhouettes.

The best feature of the app is that it’s multilingual; the story can be narrated (by native speakers) or read in English, French, Italian or Russian. The developer lists “interactive multilanguage dictionary” as one of the app’s value-added features, but the dictionary consists of 24 items from the story that, when tapped, will summon enunciation in any language.

If teaching children how to say “the fence” or “the maiden” in four languages is the goal, this app fits the bill.

Otherwise, there’s not much creativity or innovation to make it worth springing for. (incompatible with iPad 1) (iPad storybook app. 2-5)

SNOW RABBIT

Voigt, Silke Illus. by Voigt, Silke Emagicbook $2.99 | Nov. 1, 2012 1.0; Nov. 1, 2012 A wintry tale about friendship and the snowball effect of wishes come true.

After an exciting day of play in the snow with his brothers, Joey the snow rabbit stares dreamily at the towering fir, wishing he had a Christmas tree of his own. His rather serious friend, the raven, takes it upon himself to make his rabbit friend’s wish come true. With help from readers, he finds the perfect tree and decorates it with myriad lost items he’s discovered in the snowy woods. German author/illustrator Voigt makes a beautiful entrance into the app world with this well-rounded story of Christmas wishes, friends who go the extra mile and the idea that one good turn not only deserves another, but sometimes actually produces more good turns.

Readers can facilitate a good-natured snowball fight among Joey and his brothers, twirl the raven in a glorious dance and spin the snow rabbits in celebration of the Christmas tree. Animation and sound effects are varied and imaginative, adding depth to the narration. (Don’t miss the rabbit snores in the den.) Original music enhances the tone and action of the story. The only slight shiver is a lack of signals for the interactive elements.

Some are easy enough to find, but others, if missed, can create a rabbit hole in the story.

Still, this watercolor wonderland of a story is a lovely holiday confection. (iPad storybook app. 4-6)

This Issue’s Contributors # Kim Becnel • Marcie Bovetz • Kimberly Brubaker Bradley • Connie Burns • Timothy Capehart • Ann Childs • Julie Cummins • GraceAnne A. DeCandido • Lisa Dennis • Laurie Flynn • Omar Gallaga • Judith Gire • Melinda Greenblatt • Heather L. Hepler • Megan Honig • Julie Hubble • Jennifer Hubert • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Laura Jenkins • Betsy Judkins • Deborah Kaplan • Angela Leeper • Peter Lewis • Jill L. Locke • Lori Low • Lauren Maggio • Hillias J. Martin • April Mazza • Jeanne McDermott • Daniel Meyer • Lisa Moore • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine • Melissa Rabey • Rebecca Rabinowitz • Kristy Raffensberger • Nancy Thalia Reynolds • Melissa Riddle Chalos • Lesli Rodgers • Leslie L. Rounds • Dean Schneider • Chris Shoemaker • Robin Smith • Shelley Sutherland • Jennifer Sweeney • Deborah D. Taylor • Monica Wyatt • Melissa Yurechko

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indie WANDER Memoirs of a Quebec Backwoods

These titles earned the Kirkus Star: THE PROXY ASSASSIN by John Knoerle...................................... p. 105

Rose-Aimee Epigraph Publishing (100 pp.) $11.99 paperback | $7.99 e-book Nov. 19, 2010 978-0983051749

LUNCH WITH BUDDHA by Roland Merullo................................p. 106 A MANUAL FOR THE MODERN MYSTIC by Rio Olesky............. p. 107

THE PROXY ASSASSIN Book Three of the American Spy Trilogy

Knoerle, John Blue Steel Press (280 pp.) $15.00 paperback $0.99 e-book Sep. 1, 2012 978-0982090398

A woman’s reminiscences of her World War II–era childhood in the wilds of French Canada, which was marked by hunger, brutal winters and simple pleasures.

Rose-Aimee dedicates this memoir to her “children and grandchildren, step-children and grandchildren,” stating that she recorded “the memories she has wanted to share with [them] for a long time.” The reader feels seated at the storyteller’s knee as she spins tales from her youth that begin in Degele, a miniscule village not many miles outside the scenic, French-speaking Notre-Dame-du-Lac. Though in the vicinity of the tourist destination, Degele was a cultural world away in its poverty, rusticity and remoteness. In 1942, the year her family moved into the cabin where most of the memoir is set, virtually all the village’s men had been sent to the war, and her father was one of very few remaining. His presence, while a comfort, was not enough to keep food in his wife and three daughters’ mouths during the harsh winter months. Forced to accept a dangerous and distant logging job, he left his frail and depressive wife to fend for the children during the first snows in hopes of providing for them. The author gives us the harrowing tale of dwindling food supplies and firewood that forced her malnourished mother out into the snow and wind to scavenge for food. Though terrified for her mother, the 5-year-old Rose-Aimee distracted her infant sisters from their aching bellies by spinning vivid tales of sweet delights like their favorite, sucre a la crème. Her descriptions of food and hunger are some of the most affecting in this slim volume, and this episode is the crown jewel of her anecdotes. The memoir’s middle loses the tension of the early chapters and digresses into something of an inventory of family history and memory that offers weak narrative pull for the common reader. The pacing quickens in the final third as we return to the immediate family and a deeper investigation of the parents’ troubled marriage. Though the writing contains well-wrought images and the colloquial orality of RoseAimee’s narration often charms, these also inhibit the story’s integrity as distinct from her telling. A more scrupulous attention to structure and pacing could have delivered this truly affecting and compelling tale with the dynamic momentum it calls for.

A remarkable and moving story, despite its meandering structure, of one family’s survival against myriad forces of nature. |

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LINES OF THINKING IN AESTHETICS

Brutus, Steven CreateSpace (126 pp.) $10.00 paperback | $10.00 e-book Aug. 11, 2012 978-1470167035 Brutus (Important Nonsense, 2012) presents a slim, concise volume covering a broad history of aesthetics ranging from the ancient philosophers to the

postmodern era.

Brutus supplies an excellent, thorough introduction to the philosophy of art. He draws upon a variety of sources across the ages, including both Eastern and Western thinkers. The author rightly notes that conversations surrounding aesthetics and art can be difficult from the start, given the various opinions on whether it’s a subject that should even be broached. Despite these difficulties and differences, Brutus uses a clear, readable style that renders this complex topic accessible. This is not surprising since he spends a fair amount of time analyzing the barriers the human language can present when attempting to grasp such a historically ungraspable concept. His selection of quotes demonstrates how even famously articulate people have trouble finding “the right words to express the urgent things we want to say.” Perhaps the author’s experience as a teacher enables him to condense so many big ideas into such tightly worded paragraphs. This may also explain his uncharacteristically passionate commentary on the efforts of totalitarian societies to restrict and reduce art to mere propaganda, especially through education. He notes, “Much of what passes for ‘education’ in human history is more accurately described as mind control by means of physical and psychological torture.” Brutus includes several pages of quotes and commentaries from those who did find the right words to express the urgent things they wanted to say about the age-old questions of art, and all of them provide rich ideas to ponder.

A succinct philosophical discussion on the history and development of aesthetics.

THE ONE-MINUTE ZILLIONAIRE

Christensen, Lowell T. CreateSpace (200 pp.) $14.95 paperback | $9.99 e-book Oct. 16, 2012 978-1470177928 Christensen’s parody of instantwealth self-help books explains how “abnormally-white teeth and that house in Vail” can be yours—if you write your

own success book.

With sharp tongue firmly in cheek, the author skewers those who strive to bring profundity to the gullible.

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Christensen studies the works of “the masters”—from Awaken the Giant Within to Outliers—and concludes that they “have more poetic devices than Alexander Pope ever dreamed of ” and also make generous use of “white space,” as Christensen also does to humorous effect. The book riffs on the theories of Freud, Jung and Pavlov and stresses the importance of knowing a few key Latin phrases in case you find yourself stumped in a business meeting. The author even invents his own mantra: “Seek a Eureka!©” and equates the importance of work, education and inheritance with the odds of winning Powerball, picking stocks like Warren Buffet and raising rabbits. One section focuses on bogus visualization techniques aimed at the “achievable goal” of purchasing a “301-acre dream property in Fiji.” The book also offers 26 principles, which run from A to Z in clichéd self-help fashion. “The Atlas Principle” advises readers to be kind to those “several orders of magnitude larger than you,” while “The Zucchini Principle” states, “If thou of thyself hath abundance, thou shalt squash thy neighbors.” A discussion on the overuse of the word “paradigm” drives the author to pen a poem: “Ode to St. Stephen”—aka Stephen R. Covey, the author of the best-selling Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This astute, irreverent book closes “with a brief hint of spirituality” and an appropriately absurd index that’s clever enough to work as a stand-alone piece.

A wit worthy of Tom Robbins takes on the platitudes of Tony Robbins and his ilk.

REBELS BY ACCIDENT

Dunn, Patricia Alikai Press Inc. (274 pp.) $14.95 paperback | $3.99 e-book Aug. 16, 2012 978-0985492120 In her debut novel, journalist Dunn tells an ambitious and winning comingof-age story about an American teenager born to Egyptian parents.

Being a teenager probably wasn’t a cakewalk for any of us, but when you’re a first generation Egyptian-American living in post-9/11 New York, no one can blame you for having a bit of an identity crisis. Mariam, a strong but lost 15-year-old, clutches to her sole friend, the bright and outspoken Deanna. Deanna struggles with her own issues. She’s from a single-parent home (she has a “sperm donor” for a father) and contends with a facial deformity that doesn’t allow her to smile.

At the start of the book, the duo make a rare party appearance that winds up landing them and the rest of their high school class in jail for underage drinking and the presence of marijuana. As a consequence, Mariam’s parents decide to send their daughter to Egypt to live with her sittu (grandmother). And, in the only unrealistic plot point in the book, Deanna’s mother decides to send her along as well. But while Deanna excitedly prepares for their journey by studying travel books and practicing Arabic with Baba (Mariam’s father), Mariam dreads the idea of living with her sittu, whose “iron fist” she grew up fearing.

“Fraedrich delivers a tale about friendship and triumph over adversity that translates to any time, space or audience.” from skateboards, magic, and shamrocks

Luckily, her grandmother turns out to be an incredibly warm and interesting woman who teaches Mariam about life and love and to be proud of her ancestry. Though their trip is cut short due to a revolution throughout Egypt, the five-day jaunt is a whirlwind of activity—a trip to the pyramids, ice skating in a mall, a love story for both young women and a brush with the political uprising that both inspires and teaches. The author shines at writing teenagers—no part of how they talk or think feels unfaithful to that delicate stage in life.

An excellent young-adult novel that is an important and enjoyable read for both teenage girls and any adult wanting to understand more about the present-day life of Egyptian Americans.

Room for Enjoyment Memoir of a Design Merchant

Elmo, John S. FriesenPress (200 pp.) $31.99 | $17.99 paperback | $4.99 e-book Oct. 11, 2012 978-1770977853 A distinguished fellow of the American Institute of Interior Designers delivers an entertaining debut novel about a New York designer and his wealthy clients.

In 1976, when Eaton Downing agrees to build and decorate a palatial mansion for Moses and Dolly Abrams, he feels confident about the assignment. Although he’s used to working with wealthy clients who have their own ideas about good taste, he’s horrified when the 54-year-old pizza king and his chorus-girl bride insist on creating eight different bedrooms for enacting their sexual fantasies. Eaton feels that the plan will make his clients’ abode more like a hotel than a home. Still, he dutifully complies with their wishes, creating rooms with Southwest, French, Japanese, circus and futuristic themes. Meanwhile, although Eaton’s raison d’être is his work, he finds himself entranced by his design school chum’s fashion-designer wife. The novel’s loving descriptions of interior designs sometimes fill entire chapters, but the lush details are carefully woven into the story, making them accessible to casual readers as well as design fanatics. (The novel even includes a helpful glossary of design terms.)

The author’s prose style is languorous and polished, and he effectively sketches minor characters with minimal fuss. However, the novel’s twist ending, while fun, necessitates a lengthy epilogue with terse plot explanations. Although some aspects of the plot, particularly the love story, feel slight, readers will likely find the novel’s glorious interior descriptions and its engaging characters irresistible.

A light, breezy read that interior-design and decorating enthusiasts will especially enjoy.

SKATEBOARDS, MAGIC, AND SHAMROCKS Fraedrich, Dana CreateSpace (408 pp.) $14.99 paperback | $0.99 e-book Jul. 18, 2012 978-1478231516

Two teens find themselves in a mystical reality where they must battle to save their lives in Fraedrich’s debut YA fantasy.

Taryn and Ozzie—two young adolescents who dislike each other—suddenly land in an alternate reality together. Taryn awakes in the middle of the night to find she’s not dreaming as she suspected, but rather in “a vast, green, moonlit forest.” After realizing Ozzie is there with her, she meets De’dua, a centaurlike creature who befriends them and provides them with shelter and food. The two teens want to return home and are told they must journey to another town, Truewood, to seek the advice of someone named Girall, an omniscient creature. The encounter with the seemingly decrepit old man launches them on an epic journey through forests, mountains and small towns, where they fight ghosts, vampires and shape-shifters. They also befriend elves, including one named Tynx who joins them on their journey and forms a close bond with Taryn, and a doglike creature named Heinz. Their ultimate task is to find and defeat Vurnal, the evil leader. Armed only with two magic stones, Taryn and Ozzie devise a plan to defeat Vurnal with science, something the creatures of this alternative land do not know much about. Just before the suspense-filled final battle scene, Fraedrich reveals the troubling past that broke the teens’ friendship: a boat accident left Ozzie’s father and Taryn’s 5-year-old brother dead.

Taryn faces her resentment with Ozzie: “[H]er heart yearned to continue to lay blame, but she fought against it.” Using their magic rocks, they produce chemical formulas that cause Vurnal to “leak” to death. Taryn and Ozzie fall into a deep sleep that night and awake back in their beds as if no time had passed. The writing is suspenseful and colorful, and well-developed characters continually entertain. Vivid description paints a clear and imaginative picture of a mythological landscape and its denizens. Fraedrich delivers a tale about friendship and triumph over adversity that translates to any time, space or audience.

An exciting, engaging adventure about defeating evil and reconnecting the bonds of friendship; perfect for igniting adolescent imaginations.

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“Gentsch maintains an admirably nonpartisan course to inform and awaken readers to the significance of economic ideas and policies.” from points on a line

POINTS ON A LINE

Gentsch, D.L. iUniverse (516 pp.) $36.95 | $26.95 paperback | $9.99 e-book May 16, 2012 978-1475921793 978-1475921779 paperback Forty years of political and financial suspicion and frustration kneaded into a semifictional account of government machinations, power brokering, partisan jousting and, always in the foreground, a complex economic debate.

Divided into four parts—beginning with the ominous “Seeds of the Beast” and ending with a portentous reference to “Voices of Babel”—Gentsch’s debut is told largely from Jude Anders’ perspective. First, he’s a civically engaged college student organizing Vietnam War protests, then an economic analyst at the IMF and the Federal Reserve, and eventually, he’s an advisor in the fictional present-day American president’s inner circle. In a socially and politically liberal voice, the book directly adheres to documented history through the Clinton presidency, then refers nondescriptly to a Republican in the White House for eight years, and finally presents a thinly fictionalized version of the last four years under a Democratic president named Mitchell Taylor, a single-term Native American senator from Colorado. As bright and capable as Jude appears to be, his career trajectory has a manufactured hue to it; while avoiding the draft in seminary school in Toronto, he meets Anton Tomasin, an articulate if somewhat cagey political science major around whom Jude is instinctively cautious because Anton has been raised by his adoptive parents in material comfort with privileged access to global movers and shakers. In the novel, a powerful, conspiratorial network influences men, markets and governments, all the while shadowing Jude’s progress. This conglomerate surreptitiously lurks behind the American curtain; along with the masses of uninformed U.S. citizenry and adherents to the Chicago School of Economics, they form a body of antagonists. In flashbacks and recollections, readers relive Jude’s reactions to and involvement in a string of significant historical events, including the violence at Kent State in 1970, the oil crisis of ’73, U.S. and international interference in Central and South American regimes, the attacks and aftermath of 9/11, and the contemporary debt crisis in Greece. Despite its lumbering pace, the simple, colloquial prose progresses with easy-to-swallow biographical turns—cute college girls; reluctant, ultimately joyful fatherhood; bitter divorce. The constant color of economic crisis and espionage, however, sometimes dizzily careens toward implausibility. Jude’s populism and essentially Keynesian philosophy would have been better served had Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman followers in the novel had an equal champion; instead, opposing forces tend to be uninformed, fatalistic or sinister. For the most part, though, Gentsch maintains an admirably nonpartisan course to inform and awaken readers to the significance of economic ideas and policies.

A broad, striking attempt to interweave money and politics.

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DEVIL’S RUN

Hughes, Frank CreateSpace (332 pp.) $8.99 paperback | $0.99 e-book Aug. 16, 2012 978-1478354550 A pedal-to-the-metal crime novel in which a sarcastic private investigator gets more than he bargained for while working a missing person case.

Former federal agent Nick Craig is a man who doesn’t “play well with others.” He is impudent, ill-mannered and quick to deliver acerbic one-liners. Working as a private investigator for a respected Manhattan-based security consultant, Craig grudgingly accepts what appears to be a routine case: to find a University of Washington student who has disappeared. The case quickly grows complicated as Craig explores the dorm room of Kenneth Boyd (whom his own lawyer father called “a wimp”). His belongings are gone, his computer’s history has been erased and his car has been meticulously wiped clean. The only lead is a picture of Boyd with an attractive young woman known around the campus as a hardcore environmental activist. Further investigation leads Craig to Vermont and the base of a radical environmentalist who is being watched by the FBI. After witnessing the murder of that radical and his colleague (and almost getting killed himself), Craig eventually lands in the mountains of Colorado where he finally stumbles on a grand-scale conspiracy—and all of its jawdropping revelations. While the storyline is ingeniously knotty, it also requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief; some of Craig’s exploits are incredible. But because the pacing is frantic and the narrative engaging, readers will undoubtedly not be too distracted.

This action-packed thrill ride, reminiscent of Ian Fleming and Nelson DeMille, will satisfy the most demanding literary adrenaline junkie.

CHRISTMASTIME 1940 A Love Story Irene, Agnes Manuscript (169 pp.)

In her debut, Irene offers a nostalgic story set in 1940, about neighbors finding love in New York City.

Lillian Hapsey is a 35-year-old widow raising two young sons in Manhattan.

They are trying to adjust to their new neighborhood, which is easier said than done—especially for the boys, who want to go back to their old home in Brooklyn. Despite Lillian’s artistic aspirations, she works as a telephone operator at a publishing house where she fends off the inappropriate advances of its owner. In her new building, she notices neighbor Charles Drooms. He’s only 10 years older than Lillian, but his grumpy attitude and withdrawn personality make him seem like a crotchety old-timer; children even sometimes call him “Old Man Drooms.” However, Lillian finds him attractive, apparently seeing in him what everyone else doesn’t. Meanwhile, Charles finds himself enchanted by the kindhearted Lillian, despite his best effort to ignore her by burying himself in work at his accounting firm. It turns out that he’s hiding a dark secret from his past, and although he believes that he’s better off alone, Lillian chips away at his rough exterior. As Christmas nears, Charles spends more time with Lillian and her sons. But an unfortunate incident stirs up Charles’ past and causes him to retreat, making Lillian wonder if their romance is over before it had a chance to blossom. Irene remarkably conveys Charles’ transformation from a guilt-ridden, bitter and sad Ebenezer Scrooge type to a more caring, loving man. Both he and Lillian will engage readers as they try to overcome inner struggles on their quests to find happiness. Readers will also enjoy the novel’s detailed imagery, which has a whimsical and pleasingly oldfashioned quality throughout.

A charming, heartwarming tale of two people looking for a second chance at love and family.

THE PROXY ASSASSIN Book Three of the American Spy Trilogy

Knoerle, John Blue Steel Press (280 pp.) $15.00 paperback | $0.99 e-book Sep. 1, 2012 978-0982090398 Knoerle’s ace thriller, the third in the American Spy series, chronicles a noirish tough guy’s efforts to protect the world from the Red Menace, circa 1944.

Knoerle hits precisely the right note of humility and bravado when his protagonist, American Office of Strategic Services agent Hal Schroeder, declares in the novel’s prologue: “You

wouldn’t believe how much crap you get credit for when you’re a hero.” What follows is a spare, stylish thriller peopled with wisecracking characters straight out of a Billy Wilder flick. Schroeder, a World War II vet marking time as a librarian in his native Cleveland, is tapped by real-life intelligence heavyweight Frank Wisner for another covert ops “suicide mission” in Eastern Europe. He accepts, of course—after which everything spirals blissfully out of control. Robert Altman–esque cameos of historical baddies, including FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and suave Cambridge Five double agents Guy Burgess and Kim Philby (who made careers of providing British secrets to their Soviet masters) add historical depth to the international political hijinks. However, Schroeder is the star here. The slightly goofy patriot is bright but not extravagantly so—much like author Laura Lippman’s nerdy Baltimore PI, Tess Monaghan, or Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks, whose dogged legwork and occasional epiphanies eventually solve the problems at hand. Agent Schroeder is no Sherlock, and that makes him all the more appealing and the novel more accessible. Beguiled readers will want to seek out Schroeder’s two prior adventures (2008’s A Pure Double Cross and 2010’s A Despicable Profession) as a stopgap until Knoerle hopefully blesses fans with a fourth book (à la numerically expansive author Robert Rankin) in this delightful trilogy.

A terrific Cold War thriller.

BRAND DELUSIONS Exploding the Myths and Helping You Improve Your Brand—Professionally and Personally

Leider, Bill William Leider & Associates (258 pp.)

Sep. 21, 2012 978-0985256609 A being from the future saves a company from infighting and inertia in this engaging business parable.

Leider’s debut follows a path set by Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese? (1998) with a fictional tale of a kitchenware company confronting its internal politics, misconceptions and understanding of its role in the marketplace. Brandon Strong suddenly appears in the CEO’s office and announces that he’s a visitor from 2030. He leads the company’s senior executives on a journey of corporate self-discovery, challenging their business practices and teaching them to think of the company’s brand whenever they interact with current and potential customers.

Strong offers plenty of advice, repeatedly stressing the importance of an all-encompassing definition of “Brand” (always spelled with a capital B in this book) and the need for company departments to work together. Many characters’ names (including Brandon Strong’s) involve wordplay related to their roles in the company, such as head of production Manny Factura, designer Desi Concepcion and finance whiz Ben Counter. Head of marketing Mark Selisman is the closest thing to a villain in this book, though after a night of soul-searching, even he has a |

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“[A] beautifully written and compelling story about a man’s search for meaning that earnestly and accessibly tackles some well-trodden but universal questions.” from lunch with buddha

chance at redemption. Leider clearly means for his characters to be types, not fully rounded individuals, but he provides them with enough personal issues and quirks to keep the story engaging throughout. Overall, the book offers an upbeat, can-do message that readers assessing their own brands will likely embrace.

An intriguing alternative to traditional business books, with a compelling, relevant message.

THE THRIFTY PATIENT Vital Insider Tips for Saving Money and Staying Healthy Liu, Davis Stetho Publishing (140 pp.) $14.95 paperback | $7.99 e-book Sep. 5, 2012 978-0979351228

Board-certified family physician Liu shares insider tips for navigating personal health care.

Operating under the assumption that the American health care system is byzantine and expensive, Liu guides patients through the process of finding the right doctors who can serve as health care advocates. Improving one’s medical care starts by becoming a good storyteller since “if your doctor doesn’t know, then he won’t know the right plan to determine the cause of your problem.” The doctor dismantles common myths: Technological advancements don’t necessarily translate to improved care since, as the author says, “Test results are not the absolute truth.” Many patients, in fact, receive the wrong diagnoses or undergo unnecessary tests since they didn’t explain their condition well, the doctor didn’t listen to them, or there were other communication errors. Liu reiterates a common refrain: Eat right, maintain a healthy weight and exercise. Liu also asserts that these aforementioned practices are “only part of the answer to staying well.” Preventative screening is also central to ensuring the best possible health. He contrasts examples of celebrities that benefited from screening, e.g., Sheryl Crow, whose breast cancer was detected early enough to save her, with those who were more lax, like Elizabeth Edwards, who had not been for a routine mammogram in several years. The book provides specific advice for medical checkups based on age, gender and family history, including recommended tests and frequency of visits to a general practitioner or specialist. Helpful links point to the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser-Permanente for information about conditions (instead of using “Dr. Google”). And the American Board of Internal Medicine can help find the doctors who are board-certified and more likely to be up on the latest research and useful treatments.

An accessible and invaluable guide for maximizing health care quality.

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VEILED SUMMER

Mc Glynn, Michael J. Rushwater Publishing (342 pp.) $17.18 paperback | $2.99 e-book Jul. 19, 2012 978-0957275713 In his debut novel, Mc Glynn tells an elegiac, haunting story exploring the ramifications of past actions on the present.

This vividly told novel takes place in the Irish countryside, and its story has two major sections: In the first, set in 2001, Seanie recalls his search for his father as he struggled with his own identity; in the second, set in the 1930s and ’40s, the story focuses on his mother, Annie, and how she became pregnant with Seanie. Seanie’s first-person sections will likely keep readers turning pages; as the plot unfolds, Mc Glynn works to keep readers engaged with the young man’s difficulties and the question of who Seanie’s father is. However, the novel switches points of view as it progresses, moving from Seanie to Annie to other characters (whose stories are told in third person). These switches awkwardly disrupt the plot, and some readers may occasionally be disconcerted for a moment as they shift perspective. However, these narrative devices may appeal to readers who are comfortable with sophisticated forms. The author also often provides vivid descriptions; at one of the novel’s climactic points, Mc Glynn refrains from explicitly describing what is happening, yet presents a disturbing scene that almost reads like poetry: “Warmth brushed against Annie’s cheeks and caressed her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered briefly and were still again.” Throughout the novel, the author effectively depicts the thoughts and experiences of his three-dimensional characters as he brings them to life for readers.

A challenging, startling tale of a mother and son.

LUNCH WITH BUDDHA

Merullo, Roland AJAR Contemporaries (392 pp.) $34.85 | $16.85 paperback | $9.85 e-book Nov. 13, 2012 978-0984834556 In this engaging follow-up novel (Breakfast with Buddha, 2008), Merullo takes readers on a spiritual road trip through the American West.

Otto Ringling is a successful New York City editor who has built a happy, comfortable life with his family in the suburbs. But when his wife, Jeannie, dies, Otto’s entire orbit is suddenly thrown off course. Along with his two college-aged children, his New-Age sister Cecelia, her eccentric, sort-of Buddhist husband and guru, Volya Rinpoche, and their enlightened 6-year-old daughter, Otto finds himself in the forests of Washington to spread his wife’s ashes. On the way back to the family farm in North Dakota, Otto rides alone with Volya—a reprise of the trip the two took in Breakfast With

Buddha—in a beat-up pickup truck. Together, they traverse the mountainous West, Otto teaches Volya about American culture—including food, water parks, marijuana and transvestites—and Volya teaches Otto how to let go. Otto is frustrated and often angry. While he has embraced some of Volya’s teachings—and has even tried his hand at meditation and yoga—his wife’s death has left him bitter, skeptical and confused. But he does his best to keep an open mind: He listens to Volya, even when his sweet, wise and goofy companion says little; he asks questions, even when he knows that the answers will most likely elude him. In Otto Ringling, Merullo offers readers a hero that’s a bit jaded but loving; a little lost but searching. One can’t help but root for Otto, despite—or perhaps because of—his curmudgeonly tendencies, and hope that he finds the inner peace that, even if he doesn’t quite know it, he desperately seeks.

While there are a few flat notes—a handful of too-convenient circumstances to help Otto along his path to clearer consciousness and some distracting references to too-current events (the Obama/Biden campaign, tumult in Syria) that pluck the narrative from its otherwise timeless path—Merullo’s is a beautifully written and compelling story about a man’s search for meaning that earnestly and accessibly tackles some well-trodden but universal questions.

A quiet meditation on life, death, darkness and spirituality, sprinkled with humor, tenderness and stunning landscapes.

A MANUAL FOR THE MODERN MYSTIC

Olesky, Rio iUniverse (360 pp.) $33.95 | $23.95 paperback | $7.69 e-book Mar. 22, 2011 978-1450294058 A guide about how to weave spirituality into real-world experiences by following 12 basic, manageable laws.

The word “mystic” often brings to mind a person who lives outside society in order to maintain his rarified state. However, Olesky (Astrology and Consciousness, 1995, etc.) writes that a mystic way of being can enhance every aspect of normal human existence—from childbirth to creative expression to simple tasks such as tidying a workspace or watering plants in a garden. His manual lays out universal laws he has identified (and followed) as guideposts for spiritually connected living. The laws correlate with the 12 zodiac signs, which Olesky has eloquently expanded to embody the full range of flesh-andblood experience. For example, the possession-focused Earth sign Taurus embodies the Law of Survival, while the expansive sign of Sagittarius correlates with the Law of Abundance.

(Other laws touch on Creativity, Love, Harmony, Transcendence and other principles.) However, this is no mere astrological guide: Olesky fleshes out the principle behind each law before touching on the astrological correlation and explains the consequences of “not aligning” with each law. The book never

becomes dry or preachy; Olesky draws on his own experiences as well as those of his family, clients and teachers to breathe life into each law and highlight the laws’ relevance and achievability.

The result is an eminently readable, heartfelt and soulful manual, graced by Olesky’s wisdom as well as quotations and ideas from spiritual teachers across the centuries.

A passionate testament about interconnectedness that appeals to both heart and mind.

ISABELLA ROCKWELL’S WAR Parry, Hannah Nielsen Book (286 pp.) $9.74 paperback | $3.99 e-book Aug. 18, 2012 978-0957332102

In Parry’s debut novel, a 12-yearold orphan finds herself embroiled in a royal mystery.

Having lost her mother in a monsoon shortly after birth, Isabella Rockwell was raised in India by her devoted father, a sergeant in the English army, and Abhaya, their loving housekeeper. A secret mission pulls her father away, but when he vanishes and is presumed dead, Isabella undertakes a futile search for him. Shortly after, she’s sent from the only country she’s ever known to a London household. She’s meant to learn a trade, but indentured servitude doesn’t suit her headstrong, independent nature, so she quietly slips out onto London’s filthy streets in a bitter winter. She finds herself, à la Oliver Twist, adopted by a group of endearing orphans who scrabble for food and artfully steal to get by. In an opportune moment, Isabella heroically saves the life of a well-dressed young girl on a runaway horse, injuring herself in the rescue. She wakes to find herself in Kensington Palace, the home of Princess Alixandrina Hanover, the girl she saved. During her convalescence, the two girls establish a sisterly relationship, and the irony of their contrasting situations becomes a driving force in the story’s narrative: Isabella is an impoverished orphan now freed from the bonds of parental authority, yet once cherished by her father and housekeeper; Princess Alix, virtually a prisoner of the palace, feels desperately unloved by her family. Meanwhile, suspicious, near-fatal accidents continue to befall Alix, and Isabella secretly begins to investigate. Are the accidents merely coincidental, or is someone in the royal family trying to kill the princess? All the while, Isabella continues to dream about returning to her beloved India. Will she betray Alix and steal from the palace to pay for her passage? Parry’s descriptions are as varied as they are rich, from the scents of Abhaya’s Indian healing herbs to the sounds of London’s bustling streets and the opulence in the British royalty. A sizable cast of beautifully developed, memorable characters makes solving the mystery even more deliciously puzzling, and readers will be guessing to the surprising end. The well-written dialogue is full of charming colloquialisms, and much of Parry’s descriptions border on the poetic: “The Duchess’ voice was light and |

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h pat r i c i a d u n n

Rebels by Accident

Dunn, Patricia Alikai Press Inc. (274 pp.) $14.95 Aug. 16, 2012 978-0985492120

K i rk us M e di a L L C # President M A RC W I N K E L M A N Chief Operating Officer MEG LABORDE KU E H N Chief Financial Officer J ames H ull SVP, Marketing M ike H ejny SVP, Online Paul H offman # Copyright 2013 by Kirkus Media LLC. KIRKUS REVIEWS (ISSN 19487428) is published semimonthly by Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Road, Austin, TX 78744.

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Patricia Dunn’s young adult novel, Rebels by Accident, deals with romance, revolution and the efforts of three women to balance their disparate worlds. Through the eyes of Mariam, a patriotic U.S. teenager of Egyptian ancestry, and against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, Dunn reveals how Mariam, her best friend, Deanna, and her sittu (grandmother) learn to let their “freak flags fly.”

The former managing editor of Muslimwakeup. com, a popular U.S.-based online magazine, and a teacher at Sarah Lawrence College, Dunn’s previous work has been published in web journals and anthologies. In this successful foray into YA literature, she brings the same clarity and insight to her characters as she does the gathering masses in Tahrir Square. While Mariam experiences her first kiss, Deanna discovers nerve that rivals that of her high-powered attorney mother back home in New York. Most remarkably, Dunn explains Sittu’s ability to hold onto the traditions of her beloved country with one hand, while checking her social media accounts with the other.

Dunn took some time to discuss her fictional journey to present-day Cairo and the creation of her trio of quick-tongued rebels.

Q: Was there anything that made you feel different when you were younger—and how did you learn to move through that stage in a positive way?

A: I grew up in the Bronx, in a neighborhood where most were born on what was referred to as the “other side,” meaning southern Italy. My family is also Italian—but my parents were born here, so we were the “Americans” on the block. Sometimes it was frustrating, especially when everyone was speaking a language I didn’t understand....I learned how to read people, understand body language. As we know, people don’t always say what they mean.

Since those days, I’ve traveled around the world, and this skill has come in handy. It was probably the feeling of being the “outsider” that pushed me toward writing.

Q: Why did you choose two American teenagers as protagonists for a novel that takes place during the uprising in Tahrir Square?

A: Teens are tough, and whenever I tried to go back to a more adult narrator, Mariam kept fighting her way back. I knew that the recent Egyptian revolution was part of her story, so with help and encouragement from my editor and agent, and after many revisions, this version emerged. Deanna is a lot like me. At 16, I was very passionate but not always good about considering the possible consequences of my actions. |

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Q: Your descriptions of traveling to the suburbs of Cairo, navigating the language and people, give the book great depth. Have you spent much time in Egypt? Were you there for the Arab Spring?

A: My in-laws lived in Egypt when my son was younger, and we visited there many times. I lived in the region as well. I wasn’t there during the revolution, so to get the feel for a lot of the scenes at Tahrir Square, I spent hours looking at YouTube videos and Facebook and Twitter, asking everyone I knew who was there or who had family there at the time for details. I made sure that the Arabic translations, as well as all other facts, were checked and rechecked. I wanted the transliteration to be true to the way things are said in Egypt as opposed to other Arabic-speaking countries. Then there was all the research around social media. It was amazing how the youth in Egypt were not only using Facebook to share news about fashion or friends, they were using it to organize also, to change the world.

Q: With the drafting of a new constitution, there are fears about the rights of women, like Mariam’s sittu, who have struggled for the equal rights preached in the Quran.

What do you think Mariam would find on a return trip to Cairo in 10 or 20 years?

A: A revolution, with real change, doesn’t happen overnight or over a year. The United States Constitution was adopted in 1787, but women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920! I don’t think the women in Egypt will be patient for long. This revolution had as many women behind it as it did men. And there are also many men in Egypt who know that if there isn’t equality for women, there isn’t equality for anyone. So, I can’t say what Mariam will see in 20 years in terms of government, but I know that she will find many strong and self-determined women like her sittu. She may even decide to live there for awhile, maybe do a year abroad at the University of Cairo. Or maybe her children will.

Rebels by Accident is reviewed on p. 104 of this issue.

– By Tom Eubanks Tom Eubanks is a writer and editor. In publishing for over two decades, he also represents authors and artists. He’s currently working with fashion icon Pat Cleveland on a long-anticipated memoir. He lives in NYC.

FINDING TRANQUILITY BASE

insubstantial, like the bubble on top of milk just arrived in the pail.”

Imaginative and touching; like India, a sparkling jewel in the crown.

HAIL TO THE CHIEFS

Poppoon, Stephen James iUniverse (384 pp.) $31.95 | $21.95 paperback | $3.99 e-book Aug. 20, 2012 978-1475928785 978-1475928761 paperback A coming-of-age story about a group of high school soccer stars navigating their first year of college after they all decide to attend the same Midwestern school.

Readers tag along with the boys as their parents drop them off at college and the freshmen adjust to dorm life, practice soccer and even drink a beer—or four—at a frat party. Readers are privy to the boys’ first steps into adulthood in the ’60s. Best friends Barrett and Paxton steal the show: Barrett has always been the star athlete dating the star cheerleader, while Paxton plays the father figure, the practical sidekick, still well-liked but not quite stepping out of the shadows. But that all changes during the boys’ freshman year at Bainbridge University in Indiana.

It’s a school where the girls are pretty, football reigns supreme, and not everything is as it seems. Poppoon has a knack for painting vivid scenes—from a night out drinking Rolling Rock at Fitzgerald’s and listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival to game day on the pitch, with perfect descriptions of every last pass, shot and goal. However, the play-by-play of nearly every maneuver during a game can become a bit tedious, even for the most fanatical of fans. Regardless, the book picks up momentum toward the middle, as the chapters—one for each day the boys have been away at college thus far—shorten and the boys deal with very adult issues. Together, the group of friends, which grows to include a few beloved girls, navigates the ups and downs of college, teamwork, illness and even death. For any reader who’s played soccer at a school dominated by football, this shot on goal scores.

An idyllic tale of the pitfalls and positives of growing up.

Rebhan, Janet CreateSpace (230 pp.) $12.95 paperback | $2.99 e-book Sep. 27, 2012 978-1478147817

Rebhan’s debut coming-of-age novel offers a unique perspective on family secrets and public tragedies.

It’s 1969, and teenager Riley Pritchard believes her life in small-town Flatfield, Texas, is as dull as the hot, dry countryside. Everything changes when a tornado touches down, destroying her family’s home. Riley’s father dubs their new home Tranquility Base, after the recent Apollo 11 moon-landing site, but the Pritchards’ lives become increasingly chaotic. Riley takes up volunteering at the veterans’ hospital, and when her baby sister, Katie, goes missing and is later found dead, Riley blames herself. While volunteering, she meets Johnny, a badly burned Vietnam veteran, and their shared pain develops into romance, but when he disappears without saying goodbye, Riley is plunged back into depression. After her mother runs off with the town preacher, Riley tries to find out the truth behind her sister’s death. She takes comfort in artistic pursuits, ultimately building a life around therapeutic self-expression. The author packs the novel with tragedy while keeping the story centered on Riley’s personal experiences of pain, loss and hope and detailing the ways the young girl distances herself from her flawed, unhappy parents and their callous actions. Riley’s ability to forgive without forgetting marks her as a strong, complex character. Overall, the author deftly portrays Riley as a person of indomitable spirit, determined to build a Tranquility Base of her own, no matter where life takes her.

A well-crafted novel that engagingly looks at what it takes to find happiness in a world that’s falling apart.

AXEL HOOLEY’S DEATH WATCH LIST

Sandoe, Scotty-Miguel CreateSpace (198 pp.) $10.99 paperback | Sep. 1, 2012 978-1478297512 In Sandoe’s debut novel, a man’s cancer diagnosis leads him on a supernatural journey.

Axel Hooley is a man without a family. When he discovers he has stomach cancer, he calls on his friends to help with his care and recovery. Dale and Zoe take the lead, and at first they honor Axel’s request to keep his other friends in the dark about his cancer. Axel suffers from nausea, dizziness and incontinent bowels and begins to experience blackouts that last for hours at a time. During one blackout, he ends up 10 miles from Dale’s home in nothing but his underwear and with no memory of how he got there. After this incident, Axel creates |

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“The poet’s voice is critical but tinged with hope; her words are sharp but chosen wisely.” from a partial rainbow makes no sense

a Death Watch List of his friends, who band together to keep an eye on him during his treatment. After Axel’s mysterious trip downtown, they start handcuffing him to the sofa before he sleeps. His dreams become more intense as he gains apparently supernatural insight into the minds of his doctors, nurses and his new hypnotist. Axel’s illness leads him on a quest to find out more about his past as more bizarre events occur: Trees sprout in the middle of Los Angeles homes, wild animals come through skylights and a hospital bed soars over the American Midwest.

Sandoe keeps up the suspense as he slowly unwraps the mystery of Axel’s past and effectively evokes the compassion that develops between strangers when a loved one is in distress. Overall, the author delivers a raw, honest and humorous story about illness and recovery.

An engaging, darkly comedic tale.

MICHAEL HAWK ADVENTURES Curse of the Last Moondragon Selby, Robert Clark Booktango (373 pp.) $4.99 e-book | Sep. 20, 2012

In Selby’s debut young-adult adventure novel, a boy hits the road during the Depression and finds friends, foes and a

fire-breathing dragon.

Twelve-year-old Christopher and his father have traveled from town to town for most of the boy’s life, but Christopher doesn’t know why. The mystery deepens when Christopher’s father is “bloodied and scarred beyond recognition” after a car chase with thugs. “It’s you they want, Christopher. It’s you.…

Run,” his father says. After riding the rails with some less-thandelightful hoboes, Christopher assumes the fake name Michael Hawk and winds up in an orphanage run by the sadistic Mr. and Mrs. Drudge. There, he also meets fellow orphan Emily, “the loveliest person he’d ever seen.” He’s ordered to search for a treasure map hidden in the orphanage’s attic; if he doesn’t deliver, he’s told, the Drudges will throw him into “the pit.”

However, he encounters a ghost that makes his chore more difficult, and his adventures become more fantastic as the story progresses: He joins an aerial circus run by the flamboyant Lotus Moondragon, journeys to the Island of Whispering Mist and learns that he may be a person known as “The One,” foretold by a mysterious prophecy. Author Selby’s delirious mixture of story ingredients will keep young bookworms reading as they await the next plot twist. Although the book has obvious debts to Louis Sachar’s Holes and the Harry Potter series, it’s anchored by colorful characters, athletic prose and an intriguing mystery that readers will want to see resolved in future volumes. That said, parents should be aware that the book doesn’t shy away from dealing with some darker material (including carnivorous spiders and murder)—a quality shared by some of the most beloved works of YA literature.

A fast-paced adventure story that will engage young readers.

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A PARTIAL RAINBOW MAKES NO SENSE Sharpe, Patricia Lee CreateSpace (86 pp.) $9.95 paperback | Aug. 1, 2012 978-1466446892

In this collection, a poet with a background in diplomacy and academia takes on topics both global and personal.

If a reader were to pick up this collection and flip to a random poem in its first half, he or she might peg Sharpe (Coming and Going Love, 2010) as a poet with plenty to say about violence and poverty, iniquity and inequality. A peek into the book’s second half, however, might give a reader the impression of a finely focused writer tuned to appreciate subtle social exchanges and their implications. So which is Sharpe? A full reading of this collection—which is the American version of her 2002 collection The Deadmen and Other Poems—reveals a complex mix of both types of poetry. The voice that laments suffering and military action gets blended with a more humorous voice that muses on bathroom lines and artificial knees. Readers, as they make their way through this collection, soon find it reasonable for the same voice to refer to God as “a connoisseur of corpses, slashed or shot or hamburgered” and snail slime as “traceries of silver.”

The poet’s voice is critical but tinged with hope; her words are sharp but chosen wisely. She seems to see something complete beyond life’s fragments—the idea that a world with war, poverty and inequity may not make sense, but like a partial rainbow, there’s still a touch of beauty in its imperfection.

A varied but cohesive collection that nicely balances the big and small pictures.

MEMORY MADE SIMPLE

Vanlue, Jerry Wayne CreateSpace (144 pp.) $9.43 paperback | Sep. 10, 2012 978-1478239352 A succinct guide to improving the myriad types of memory.

Where are your keys? What was the name of that guy you just met? Can you recall what was on the page you just turned? Without the proper brain training, perhaps you’ve already forgotten. The brain, says Vanlue, is an extraordinary tool able to store vast amounts of information.

But, as with any instrument, it requires the practice of precise exercises to achieve its full potential. From using your nondominant hand for brushing your teeth and writing lists, to picturing in your mind the events you just read about, you can strengthen the brain, creating new neural pathways that can help you recall information quicker and with more accuracy. Similarly, while the value of memorizing calendar holidays may not be immediately apparent, Vanlue argues that using such specific data

offers practice for mnemonic learning, which has vast implications beyond knowing that it’s Administrative Professionals’ Day. Viewing numbers as concrete objects (i.e., a zero as an egg or a ball, 4 as a satellite) allows the brain to call upon its diverse functions, providing a better likelihood that dates and times will be remembered. Along with these practical hints, Vanlue investigates the idea of intelligence, suggesting that “smart” and “stupid” may not be hardwired but actually the result of outside encouragement or intimidation. Additionally, a welcome chapter on breaking habits by harnessing the power of both the conscious and the subconscious mind is accompanied by a list of practical, refreshingly simple strategies. While Vanlue’s stringent tone may not suit all readers, there’s plenty here to get anyone well on their way to becoming a memory master.

A clear introduction to maximizing the brain’s capacity for recollection.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DENIAL The Complexities of a Simple Idea Wright, Jack CreateSpace (270 pp.) $26.99 paperback | $9.99 e-book Sep. 11, 2012 978-1475053050

A psychotherapist looks at the complexities of denial and suggests ways to gently and gradually gain some control over denial-based behaviors.

Wright puts everyone, including himself, on the couch to make the case that denial is among life’s greatest limiters, but it typically escapes our notice. In fact, he explains, we’re often deeply and disadvantageously invested in not noticing what we’re ignoring. We may cling to a miserable status quo owing to a fear of change and low self-esteem. Worse, invoking willpower to overcome excessive drinking, overeating, smoking or nail biting will likely fail repeatedly and make us feel helpless to change until we understand what drives our willful ignorance. Only when we begin the painful work of clearing away the clouds of our denial, the author maintains, can we hope to make measured progress toward transformation. Patience, persistence and self-empathy then allow for small, successive feats of progress—though not great leaps—as we begin to counteract genetically predisposed, neurologically ingrained behaviors that may go back to infancy and childhood. At its best, this book of high intent provokes healthy if uncomfortable introspection. Many are likely to have flashes illuminating their own particular denial pathology, and for them, the author’s admonition to accept some responsibility while avoiding self-blame is helpful. Wright concedes that what fills pages here abbreviates tomes of material, and this leads to some paragraphs and sentences that need further explanation.

But he also writes with impact, as when he discusses empathy: “When we are in denial, we aren’t even walking in our own shoes.”

A flawed but standout effort that rewards readers with new understanding. |

kirkus.com

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THE WHIPPING CLUB

by Deborah Henry

"Henry weaves multilayered themes of prejudice, corruption and redemption with an authentic voice and swift, seamless dialogue. Her prose is engaging, and light poetic touches add immediacy...Henry's tale reveals what happens when good people remain silent."

- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A powerful saga of love and survival.�

ISBN-13: 978-0-9845531-8-1 Hardback, $19.95 ISBN-13: 978-0-9845531-7-4 Paperback, $14.95

For information about publication rights, email deborahhenry88@gmail.com or call 203-522-3328. www.deborahhenryauthor.com