Thane Tierney

Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder, and she's being examined by a police psychiatrist to discover whether she is fit for trial or fit for a straitjacket. There are a few wrinkles, however, that need to be ironed out. She might not be Jane Charlotte. She might not have killed anyone. She might not be in jail. Right from page one, you're already halfway down the rabbit hole in Matt Ruff's latest novel, Bad Monkeys. Ruff, the author of the critically lauded Set This House in Order, Fool on the Hill and Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy, ladles a dollop of William S. Burroughs into an Ian Fleming base in such a mesmerizing way it will have you scratching your head and doubling back to make sure you scooped up every psychedelic-laden morsel.

A shadowy, non-governmental, but very powerful agency (think Impossible Missions Force here) called the organization engaged the services of a young Jane Charlotte to capture or extinguish miscreants whom they call Bad Monkeys. Jane's particular subdivision—and you can bet they don't have business cards—is The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons. In the words of Hunter S. Thompson, When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro, and Jane Charlotte recounts to the police psychiatrist the curious turn of events that led her to be picked for her work as a high-minded (and highly irregular) vigilante. Along the way, she encounters agents of The Troop (think SMERSH, T.H.R.U.S.H. or the DMV), evildoers whose sole aim it is to thwart the organization and introduce wickedness into the world. Trouble is, her long-lost brother just might be The Troop's criminal mastermind, and Jane Charlotte may have to lure him out or take him out. Told mostly in flashback, the plot twists like capellini in a bubbling cauldron, and the complex sequence of events both demands and rewards your rapt attention.

Thane Tierney had a complete Man from U.N.C.L.E. rig when he was a kid.

Though Chris Abani is a foreigner by birth, he has artfully exposed Los Angeles' heart of darkness in The Virgin of Flames, the follow-up to his acclaimed debut, Graceland, which was a Today Book Club pick, a Hemingway/PEN Prize winner and a selection of the Los Angeles Times' Best Books of 2004.

For most of its length, the Los Angeles River is an ugly scar carved by silt, sludge and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Located in the middle of an urban desert, it runs just about as frequently as the bulls at Pamplona, and with similarly lethal potential. Its concrete walls are targeted by gang-bangers staking out their turf, graffiti artists, and genuinely talented muralists short on money, space and commissions. It's within sight of this river that a half-Igbo, half-Salvadoran named Black finds himself among the latter of the three groups, living the common Los Angeles delusion that because the rich and famous so often intersect with los peones, the gap between his life and theirs is closer to infinitesimal than to infinite. As artists will, he has surrounded himself with a peculiar posse, including a Jewish tattoo artist/psychic with an A-list clientele, a rich Rwandan ex-pat abattoir owner, a junkie dwarf with a penchant for Raymond Chandler trivia, and a transsexual stripper who works the less prestigious South Central clubs when not serving as Black's muse.

In the hands of Preston Sturges, a cast like this would engage in a madcap romp through Los Angeles society, hijinks at every wacky turn, rollicking toward a socko ending that would find Black the toast of the town. Bzzzzzzt. Wrong answer.

As soon as the angel Gabriel shows up in various guises, from a 15-foot-tall apparition to a lowly pigeon, impending tragedy is palpable. With a command of Los Angeles' underbelly reminiscent of Walter Mosley at his most striking, Abani spirits his angst-ridden artist toward a breathtakingly unexpected, if perhaps inescapable, conclusion.

Thane Tierney is a recovering record executive living mere blocks from some of the locations mentioned in this book.

Burned-out, soon-to-be-divorced, self-doubting, alcoholic, nearly impoverished, overweight middle-aged male poet seeks tattooed, wise-beyond-her-years, extensively pierced, rail-thin, self-destructive, fiercely intelligent female student for repartee about Rilke, miscellaneous travel and . . . ? We can already hear the boots clomping toward the door. Stop. Winslow in Love is brilliant, and more than you will have bargained for.

When it comes to books about middle-aged dysfunctional poets, Anthony Burgess set the bar with his excellent Enderby tetralogy. Happily, Kevin Canty, the award-winning author of Nine Below Zero and Into The Great Wide Open, has delivered a formidable peer for the estimable Mr. Enderby. Richard Winslow is at that age when his first blush of success has receded to a dot in the rearview mirror, with no clear road map to his next triumph, if indeed it is to occur. He accepts a temp job at a Montana college as a stand-in for an even less dependable poet/lecturer, mostly for the cash, but also as a change of venue.

What he doesn't expect is that, in among the student sheep, a wolf awaits. Her name is Erika Jones, and she tramples across Winslow's private Maginot Line. "The one thing I finally figured out," says Erika, "is that you'll never ever understand what goes on between two people when they're in a relationship. Easier to see what's happening on the dark side of the moon."

Point taken. Canty brings us close, though, with his poet's ear for place and space. As Jones and Winslow careen toward a completely unexpected denouement, Canty offers us insight into a man grappling with two important questions. One of them is immediate and specific: can the teacher or the poet retrieve his acolyte from the precipice? The other is enduring and general: is there any meaning to what we do? Winslow's journey to the intersection of those questions is often troubling, always compelling.

Thane Tierney is a record executive in Los Angeles.