A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
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Now and then—too seldom, really—one stumbles onto an addictive, engrossing novel. Every once in a while it’s also possible to find a fresh, engaging romance. And sometimes, as in The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths, you’re lucky enough to find both in one book.

Archaeologist Ruth Galloway is overweight and pushing 40, not your typical fictional heroine. Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson is brusque, with a dangerous side and nary a poetic bone in his body. Plus, he’s married. This unlikely twosome sets the sparks flying in a story that unfolds at the edge of the Saltmarsh, a line of sand and mudflats where land meets ocean and ocean meets sky. This is Ruth’s home, in North Norfolk on the English coast. The lonely yet strangely inviting landscape of rain, tides, silent drifting swans and calling birds forms a unique backdrop for an atmospheric story about the discovery of a body in the marsh that police think may be that of a young local girl who disappeared some 10 years earlier.

Inspector Nelson seeks Ruth’s advice on the remains, which instead turn out to be the body of a young girl preserved for nearly 2,000 years in the peaty bog, near a circle of ancient standing stones. Ruth, excited by the discovery of ancient remains, is nevertheless drawn into the mysteries of the present when more recent human remains are found. She begins to unravel the clues posed in a series of anonymous letters dating back over a decade—clues that point to the location of the missing local youngster.

In this dark and witty novel, Griffiths makes each paragraph seem effortless, with just the right amount of description, pathos or humor. In addition to the book’s intriguing duo, the supporting characters in this story are carefully drawn, each believable and entertaining.

The first in a new crime series, The Crossing Places reassures readers of the continuing power of fiction to envelop and entertain. This is a book to save for a rainy dark day when you need a reward. And instead of saying, as you hit the last paragraph, “Well, that’s done,” you’ll be moved to hope, “please, let there be a next one!”

Barbara Clark writes from Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

Now and then—too seldom, really—one stumbles onto an addictive, engrossing novel. Every once in a while it’s also possible to find a fresh, engaging romance. And sometimes, as in The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths, you’re lucky enough to find both in one book.

Archaeologist Ruth…

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Waking up with a hangover on the bathroom floor of a train station is never an enticing proposition. But doing so with absolutely no recollection of who you are or how you got there is even more unpleasant. Unfortunately, that is exactly the predicament faced by Luke, the protagonist in Ken Follett's latest thriller, Code to Zero.

Luke is a man without an identity, yet he possesses skills no homeless drunk would have. He effortlessly completes a crossword puzzle; he has no difficulty disarming and subduing an aggressive police officer; and he seems to know French. But he does not know who he is.

Set over less than 48 hours in 1958, Code to Zero takes place during the height of the American space race with the Soviet Union. The countdown for launch has begun for Explorer I, America's best hope to catch the Soviet Sputnik and regain the lead in space exploration.

As Luke tries to find out who he is and why he's important enough to have his identity erased, he uncovers long-kept secrets about four old friends from Harvard. The cast of characters is diverse: Anthony Carroll, now head of the Technical Services branch of the recently formed CIA; Billie Josephson, a brilliant researcher at Georgetown Mind Hospital; Bern Rothsten, Billie's ex-husband, now a famous author, and a longtime friend and rival of Luke's; and Luke's wife Elspeth, of whom he has no recollection.

Time is running out for Luke to reclaim his identity. He knows something that someone would like him to forget, and he realizes the key to piecing his life back together is somehow tied to the rocket that stands ready to launch at Cape Canaveral.

The author demonstrates a convincing understanding of American culture and language. Many readers may not be aware that Follett is British, and after reading Code to Zero they wouldn't suspect it.

Follett has made a name for himself by writing taut, well-researched thrillers, and Code to Zero is no exception.

 

Wes Breazeale is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest.

Waking up with a hangover on the bathroom floor of a train station is never an enticing proposition. But doing so with absolutely no recollection of who you are or how you got there is even more unpleasant. Unfortunately, that is exactly the predicament faced…

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Politician-turned-author Raymond Flynn (with the help of novelist Robin Moore) has come out with a book whose cleverness and political timeliness would make even Tom Clancy jealous. In The Accidental Pope, first-time novelist Flynn has spun a smart and entertaining tale of the unlikely election and subsequent rise to fame of the Catholic Church's 265th pope. The timing of this novel about Vatican high politics could hardly be more prescient, coming at a time when Pope John Paul II's failing health has Catholics and non-Catholics alike actively speculating on his possible successor.

This admittedly highly incredible tale takes as its launching point the accidental election by the Council of Cardinals of Billy Kelly a Cape Cod fisherman, a widower and father of four, and a former priest who scandalized his Massachusetts parish by leaving the clergy in order to marry to the highest church office. Kelly accepts the cardinals' peculiar offer and ascends to the papacy as Pope Paul II (the latter day fisherman symbolically takes the papal name of history's most famous fisherman, the church's first pope). It soon becomes clear that Paul II was elected not through accident but through divine provenance, and that it will fall on his shoulders to reform the church in hopes of attracting a new generation of Catholics into the fold. Upon taking office, the new pope almost immediately sets out to resolve many of the questions facing modern Catholicism including such weighty issues as the role of women in the church, the interdict against clerical marriage, the increasingly desperate plight of the Third World and the question of contraception. The fictive American pope's role as a Vatican outsider allows him to bring a refreshing perspective to the debate on these issues.

As former mayor of Boston and U.S. ambassador to the Vatican from 1993-97, Flynn intimately understands both American Catholicism and Vatican politics, and his familiarity with his subject matter comes through in his writing. (Not unsurprisingly, both the U.S. ambassador and the state of Massachusetts receive high praise in Flynn's narrative.) Most of the novel's action takes place in Rome, but the fantastic and fast-paced plot takes the reader from Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, to Belfast, Ireland, to Rakai, Uganda, finally returning to the Eternal City where Flynn's amazing story ends on a note that is simultaneously tragic and hopeful.

Laura Beers is assistant literary editor of The New Republic.

 

Politician-turned-author Raymond Flynn (with the help of novelist Robin Moore) has come out with a book whose cleverness and political timeliness would make even Tom Clancy jealous. In The Accidental Pope, first-time novelist Flynn has spun a smart and entertaining tale of the unlikely election…

Readers in search of the best new writing in America need not search far. Trustworthy editors have scrutinized a year's worth of publications in nearly every field to cull the finest short stories, sports writing, mystery stories, essays, travel writing and poetry for new anthologies. Each collection may be enjoyed as a satisfying end in itself or as a convenient introduction to new or unfamiliar writers.

Grand Master Donald E. Westlake has assembled a fine collection in The Best American Mystery Stories 2000. Offerings range from Shel Silverstein's nimble "The Guilty Party" to Robert Girardi's gritty shocker "The Defenestration of Aba Sid." As in the other categories of Houghton Mifflin's Best American Writing Series, the editors provide a kind of runner-up list of distinguished stories (with sources) for interested readers to track down.

The Best American Essays 2000, edited by Alan Lightman, is another diverse grouping, characterized by struggles with "truth, memory, and experience. Writers range from notable newcomers like Cheryl Strayed, a graduate student at Syracause University, to Wendell Berry and Cynthia Ozick.

For compelling short fiction, turn to The Best American Short Stories 2000. Edited by E.L. Doctorow, it offers the finest short stories chosen from American and Canadian magazines. New works by Annie Proulx, Walter Mosley and Raymond Carver are balanced by relative unknowns like Nathan Englander, whose authority and imagination make "The Gilgul of Park Avenue" a real heartbreaker.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2000 is the first in what promises to be a remarkable series. Oliver Sacks, Wendell Berry (again) and Peter Matthiessen are some of the acclaimed writers represented. Paul DePalma's kvetchy "http://www.when_is_enough_ enough?.com" is a delightfully depressing plea to examine the Faustian bargain we strike with our own personal computers.

Another new addition to the Best American Series is The Best American Travel Writing 2000, edited by Bill Bryson. Readers are in safe hands with a guy whose last three travel books have been blockbuster bestsellers. Bryson's hand-picked 25 stories are predictable only by being unpredictable and engrossing. Take "The Toughest Trucker in the World" by Tom Clynes, about a man whose daily grind involves 18-foot alligators, leeches and some of Australia's harshest terrain. Or "Lard is Good for You" by Alden Jones, a coffee-starved gringa trying to go native in a small Costa Rican village.

The Best American Sports Writing 2000 has been delivering dramatic, thought-provoking pieces to fans for 10 years. Particularly interesting are the stories about lesser-known sports like machine gunning, curling, poker and cockfighting. The definition of "sport may be open to discussion, but the quality of writing is not.

In Best New American Voices 2000, an eclectic group of short stories has been sifted from the fertile ground of the most prestigious writing programs in the United States and Canada. It is the inaugural effort of a new series and ideal for lovers of cutting-edge fiction. No celebrated authors here, just those who promise to be groundbreakers.

Finally, in The Best American Poetry 2000, Rita Dove has distilled the finest work of her colleagues. Good poems are already distilliations of the complex chemistry of thought and feeling, so this book more than any other in the bunch gives us "the voice that is great within us. From the unnerving confessions of A.R. Ammons's "Shot Glass," to the radical refashioning of faith in Mark Jarman's "Epistle," to the sustained aria of discovery in Mary Oliver's "Work," this is the innermost country of America, and it is our country at its best.

Joanna Brichetto is on BookPage's list of best reviewers.

Readers in search of the best new writing in America need not search far. Trustworthy editors have scrutinized a year's worth of publications in nearly every field to cull the finest short stories, sports writing, mystery stories, essays, travel writing and poetry for new…

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Johnny Merrimon, the central figure in John Hart’s The Last Child, is a lineal descendant and spiritual soul mate of Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield. Like them, this 13-year-old survivor is resilient, endlessly resourceful and determined to do the right thing in a world that settles for moral shortcuts.

Johnny’s self-imposed mission is to find his twin sister, Alyssa, who went missing a year earlier, presumably kidnapped. Her disappearance has shredded his once idyllic family. Now his father is also gone, driven away by guilt—so Johnny’s mother supposes—for having failed to pick up Alyssa when he was supposed to. Bereft by this double loss, Johnny’s ethereally beautiful mother, Katherine, has fallen into drugs, alcohol and the brutal arms of her former suitor, Ken Holloway, one of the richest men in (mythical) Raven County, North Carolina, where the narrative unfolds.

Police detective Clyde Hunt is just as obsessed as Johnny with finding Alyssa. His single-minded pursuit of the case has already cost him his wife and is threatening to snap his already frayed ties to his son. To complicate matters, he is becoming increasingly attracted to Katherine. Reduced to a summary, the story sounds like a soap opera. But it’s not. Here, the interior struggles far outweigh the interpersonal encounters.

Constitutionally a loner, Johnny resorts to every device he can think of—from Christian prayer to Indian rituals to door-to-door canvassing—in his unrelenting search for his sister. At the same time, he’s scheming feverishly to protect his mother. He becomes a footloose avenger, a truth-seeking creature of the night, fearful only of failing those he loves. If, like Huck Finn, he risks going to hell for doing his duty, then so be it.

Hart knows how sensitive boys feel and think behind those tough, smirking masks and with what ferocity they cling to their causes. Johnny is innocence and experience in perfect balance.

 

Edward Morris reviews from Nashville, Tennessee.

Johnny Merrimon, the central figure in John Hart’s The Last Child, is a lineal descendant and spiritual soul mate of Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield. Like them, this 13-year-old survivor is resilient, endlessly resourceful and determined to do the right thing in a world that…

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Looking back on it, Tom Clancy's success seems as improbable as the fate of the protagonists in his many best-selling novels. The Bear and the Dragon to be released later this month, is the 11th novel from this prolific author. He has also created a successful fiction series (Op-Center) and written several nonfiction works on military topics. Not bad for a former insurance salesman.

Thomas L. Clancy, Jr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1947. He graduated from Loyola College with a major in English before settling into life as an insurance broker. Like so many English majors, he dreamed of writing a novel. In Clancy's case, his hobby of warfare became the inspiration for that novel; the technology of warfare, in particular, interested him. An avid gun collector, he eventually moved on to the study of more high-tech weaponry.

In the early 1980s, Clancy read about the captain of a Soviet frigate attempting to defect to Sweden, and the seed of a novel was planted. The Hunt for Red October was eventually published by an obscure military press. It was the first work of fiction for both, and only about 14,000 copies were printed. After President Ronald Reagan read it and pronounced it "the perfect yarn," the book shot up the New York Times bestseller list.

Sales climbed when the Navy and other intelligence sources expressed consternation at Clancy's technical accuracy. Despite the rumors, he isn't a retired spy he's simply a diligent researcher. He's been debriefed by Pentagon officials and is required reading in military colleges.

Success has brought personal gain as well as personal cost; he has a fine house overlooking Chesapeake Bay, but he's been swindled in a stock scam. He's been criticized for his technology-as-hero approach, but Clancy himself decries the "techno-thriller" label attached to his fiction. He's seen three of his novels become hit movies, and his Op-Center creation has become a TV mini-series.

The entertainment press is abuzz with talk of Ben Affleck taking over for Harrison Ford as the third actor to play Jack Ryan. All of this sets the stage for the forthcoming release of The Bear and the Dragon, wherein converging forces of Russia and China present President Jack Ryan with a crisis of devastating proportions. Can there be any doubt who will rule the bestseller lists in the fall?

Jim Webb writes from Nashville.

Looking back on it, Tom Clancy's success seems as improbable as the fate of the protagonists in his many best-selling novels. The Bear and the Dragon to be released later this month, is the 11th novel from this prolific author. He has also created a…

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To mystery readers, Marcia Muller genuinely needs no introduction, so we'll keep it short. However, for those who aren't already familiar with the creator of the tough but humane California private eye named Sharon McCone, it's worth mentioning that Muller's new book, Listen to the Silence, is the 21st McCone adventure. In it McCone goes home to deal with her father's death, and discovers a long-secret document that changes the lives of everyone in the family. To tell more would be to break the cardinal rule of reviewing mystery novels, because the book is surprising and well, it's a mystery novel. People get hurt; McCone investigates. The only people having a good time are the readers.

Muller published her first Sharon McCone mystery, Edwin of the Iron Shoes, in 1977. "The ironic thing about it," she says from her home in California, "was that after the first book I couldn't sell another word for four years. My first publisher was David McKay Company, and with the publication of my first book they stopped doing fiction." Not surprisingly, at first Muller considered this development an ill omen, but she persevered. "Four years later, I submitted a manuscript that I had been shopping around for almost the entire time to Tom Dunne of St. Martin's Press." Dunne, who now has his own popular mystery imprint at St. Martin's, bought the book.

The so-called hard-boiled female detective was an idea whose time had come. Muller is credited with leading the pack. "It was in three months' order," Muller remembers. "First, Sara Paretsky came out with her first V. I. Warshawski novel; then Sue Grafton came out with Kinsey Millhone; then my second Sharon McCone came out the month after that." Before publishing her first couple of McCone novels, Muller was trying her hand at journalism. "Not very successfully," she adds, and laughs. "I had a tendency to make things up. Editors don't respond too kindly to that." She began to think that perhaps she ought to turn her attention to fiction, where making things up was a virtue rather than a vice.

Muller sees no end in sight for the series. Fortunately her titles aren't forced into a predictable succession, as in the case of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone books, all of which begin with a letter of the alphabet (for example, O Is for Outlaw).

"You know, Sue and I were talking about that last year, about how she locked herself into 26 novels. You can trap yourself early on with certain things that seem like a good idea then." Over the years, Muller has discovered that, however much fun it may be to keep returning to familiar characters and settings, writing series fiction has its unforeseen complications. "There are things in my series I would have done differently, and things that I had to just stop doing because of changing times. For instance, the legal cooperative that Sharon was working for in the beginning was a product of the '70s, the poverty law movement that was going on then. And after awhile it became very restrictive in terms of the types of cases she could take on. So I had to have her quit that and go out on her own."

The continuing adventures and ever-changing life of Sharon McCone have proven quite successful. Muller has many thousands of devoted fans and has won numerous awards. She has taken home both Anthony and Shamus awards, honors named respectively for deceased mystery writer and critic Anthony Boucher and for an old nickname for private investigators. The Private Eye Writers of America gave Muller their Life Achievement Award in 1993.

Muller is married to mystery writer Bill Pronzini, and they have collaborated on three novels, a dozen or so anthologies (including one published last year by scholarly Oxford University Press), and what she describes as "one very long, five-pound book," 1001 Midnights: The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction. Muller suspects that she and her husband will retire from anthologizing. "They're a lot of work, and the introductory material is a type of writing that although we've done it many times neither of us really enjoys doing. It's more fun picking the stories and getting them together, picking a theme for them."

Sharon McCone isn't the only series character Muller has written about. She's also the creator of museum curator Elena Oliverez and international art investigator Joanna Stark. "I've toyed with the idea of bringing one or the other character back in a McCone novel at some point. It might be interesting just to see two characters that I've created separately interact." Muller has already performed a version of this trick, in Double from the mid-1980s, a novel she and her husband co-wrote, starring both Sharon McCone and Pronzini's popular Nameless Detective. Pronzini's career demonstrates other hazards of series writing that occur when writers incorporate certain gimmicks. Not only does his detective have no name, which requires author and readers alike to simply call him Nameless, but Pronzini trapped himself into one-word titles for these books. "He's now doing a lot of non-series things," Muller says, "so he's able to use a wonderful title he finds, but for awhile there he was giving all the really good titles to me."

Asked about the provenance of the title Listen to the Silence, Muller laughs and says, "Now whose was that? It's gotten where I can't remember which ones were mine and which were his. I think that one was his."

Michael Sims is a writer, curator, and regular contributor to BookPage.

To mystery readers, Marcia Muller genuinely needs no introduction, so we'll keep it short. However, for those who aren't already familiar with the creator of the tough but humane California private eye named Sharon McCone, it's worth mentioning that Muller's new book, Listen to the…

Review by

A variety of Irish-influenced and Irish-themed books will make their charmed appearances as Irish authors take over the literary world for St. Patrick's Day. For those readers who happen to be a wee bit Irish, or for those who are simply fascinated by Irish literature, these are four of the best.

Fans of priest/author Andrew M. Greeley's Irish mysteries will be delighted with his latest: Irish Eyes: A Nuala Anne McGrail Novel. In the new installment, the beautiful and fey Nuala Anne McGrail and her devoted husband, Dermot, have welcomed a wondrous baby girl into the family. Followers of Nuala and Dermot's story from previous books will not be surprised to find that the wee lil' babe, Nelliecoyne, is as fey as her mother. It's little Nellie's vision of an ancient shipwreck off the shores of Lake Michigan that plunges her adventure-seeking parents into a search for buried treasure and the solving of a century-old mystery.

There are several side stories in Irish Eyes, all of which gel delightfully. In one subplot, Nuala Anne enjoying great success with her singing career is suffering ongoing personal and professional attacks by local arts critic Nick Farmer, who holds a vicious grudge against her novelist husband, Dermot. Farmer is out to ruin her budding career and has even threatened to institute proceedings to have her baby taken away. Fleeing Farmer's constant ranting, the family escapes to a vacation house along the shores of Lake Michigan. It's in the rented lake house that Nuala and Nelliecoyne sense strange vibrations from a place where a ship bearing members of the Ancient Order of Hiberians sank over a hundred years before.

In typical Nuala Anne style, she and Dermot set out to solve the mystery of the shipwreck. Along the way they discover that a mysterious couple who'd survived the shipwreck once lived in their lake home. In trying to discover what happened to that family, they investigte a nearby suburb, which turns out to have Irish revolutionary ties, which leads them back to Nick Farmer, who now has the Balkan Mafia looking for Nuala and Dermot with intentions to rub them out. Whew! Greeley has a remarkable way of tying all the loose ends together to create a memorable story. Along the way, he throws in commentary on racism, intolerance, and a short lesson on the Bill of Rights. Irish Eyes is an appealing installment in the ongoing story of Nuala Anne and, even if you haven't read the previous novels, you can pick right up on Nuala and Dermot's adventures. Once you get to know these two engaging people, you'll find yourself wanting more. Call it the charm of the Irish.

Another new release with Irish attitude is the breathtaking love story of a young woman's betrayal, Water, Carry Me. A haunting portrait of the amazing beauty and inexcusable violence of a divided Ireland surrounds the story line of Thomas Moran's latest novel. In what is destined to become his most acclaimed work, Moran expertly transports his readers to the weather-weary harbor towns of southern Ireland. In this rather dark tale, Una Moss is a bright young medical student struggling for independence from the world of her family's secret loyalties. Aidan Ferrel is the man who wins her love, the mesmerizing stranger she chooses to trust. Water, Carry Me is the beguiling story of love pitted against political passion. It's also the journal of a young woman's journey from innocence to betrayal, set against a background of the heartache and despair that often defines the landscape of her beloved Ireland.

New York Observer editor/columnist Terry Golway offers insight into some of Ireland's renowned leaders and legends in For the Cause of Liberty: A Thousand Years of Ireland's Heroes. From High King Brian Boru to Jonathan Swift, from Michael Collins to present-day leaders Gerry Adams and Jean Kennedy Smith, Golway covers the breadth and span of Irish history through fascinating vignettes of the ancient land's rebels and patriots, poets and kings. Golway gives a vivid account of the thrilling history of Ireland and its people. Particularly fascinating are the stories of the brave legion of women who helped shape the country's history. Golway recounts the story of Countess Constance Markievicz (nee Constance Gore-Booth of County Sligo), who, as a lieutenant, was the highest ranking woman in the Irish Citizen Army and an active soldieress who was arrested in connection with the Dublin rebellion of 1798. Also profiled is Bernadette Devlin, the youngest woman elected to the House of Commons, whose heroic battles in the fledgling Irish civil rights movement are awe-inspiring. Golway also examines present-day ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith's ceaseless efforts at obtaining peace in the divided land. For the Cause of Liberty includes dozens of black-and-white photographs and artistic renderings of Ireland's celebrated champions, and will be an invaluable reference source for those interested in the prominent and influential people who make up the rich history of the Emerald Isle.

Alice Leccese Powers gathers samplings from some of Ireland's most beloved writers and poets in her anthology Ireland in Mind. This collection covers three centuries of fiction, poetry, and essays that expound on the beauty, glory, and fascination with the land of the leprechauns. From the comic terror of Frank McCourt's First Communion to the raucous pagan festival Muriel Reykeyers attended in County Kerry during the 1930s, from playwright Oscar Wilde's descriptive family letters to poet Oliver Goldsmith's heart-wrenching verse, this anthology offers a varied look at a mysterious and ancient culture. For those who are traveling to Ireland or those whose hearts have never left its eternally green shores, Ireland in Mind will provide a delightful journey back to the Auld Sod.

Sharon Galligar Chance is a book reviewer and freelance writer from Wichita Falls, Texas.

A variety of Irish-influenced and Irish-themed books will make their charmed appearances as Irish authors take over the literary world for St. Patrick's Day. For those readers who happen to be a wee bit Irish, or for those who are simply fascinated by Irish literature,…

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Jack Higgins has long been regarded as the alpha dog of the thriller genre. Ian Fleming is long gone, Trevanian has turned his hand to westerns, and Tom Clancy has been co-creating Op-Center books for the last several years, generally regarded less favorably than his outstanding Jack Ryan series. Day of Reckoning, the new Jack Higgins novel, brings together all of the elements that have long been staples in thrillers: the IRA, the Mossad, the British crime underworld, the Mafia, the FBI, and conspiracies within conspiracies.

When the journalist ex-wife of a prominent FBI agent is murdered while doing an expose on a Mafia don, the agent musters forces on both sides of the Atlantic to wreak his revenge. It seems that the don is hurting for liquid assets and has engaged in some nefarious dealings with Irish and Middle Eastern terrorists. It is left to reformed IRA assassin Sean Dillon to throw a monkey wrench into the works, first to discredit the mafioso and then to bring him to the Halls of Justice or the Gates of Hell. Dillon rather favors the latter.

Halfway 'round the world, one of New York's finest gets drafted as an unwilling security aide to a presidential hopeful in Les Standiford's latest, Black Mountain. The candidate, long an advocate (so he says) of environmental issues, is headed to the Rocky Mountains with his entourage of hangers-on and security personnel for a week of soul searching, relaxation, and communing with nature.

The friendly seaplane pilot drops the party at a remote mountain lake, then taxies across the smooth water, lifting off like Sky King into the blue of the Western sky. Moments later, the party is horrified to hear the sounds of failing engines, the whine of an airplane falling from the sky; they watch helplessly as the small plane crashes into a mountainside. Stranded, and with no choice but to backpack their way home to civilization, the somber trekkers set out. A series of accidents ensues, taking the lives of several of the group, and leaving the survivors convinced that they are the targets of a force more sinister than even Murphy's Law.

Black Mountain is a thoroughly modern novel of corruption, intrigue, and murder at the highest levels. As is often the case with the new wave of thrillers, the hero is a character with complex motivations, a common man in an uncommon situation certainly not the urbane, unruffled James Bondian superhero of thrillers past.

Day of Reckoning and Black Mountain provide a fascinating counterpoint to one another, as well as great back-to-back reading.

Jack Higgins has long been regarded as the alpha dog of the thriller genre. Ian Fleming is long gone, Trevanian has turned his hand to westerns, and Tom Clancy has been co-creating Op-Center books for the last several years, generally regarded less favorably than his…

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"The sacred and the dispossessed meeting on the streets," is the way Sara Paretsky describes her vision of Ghost Country. Paretsky enthusiasts who look forward to each V.I. Warshawski mystery will find a different sort of book, but one that will not disappoint. When I realized the book was about homeless women on the streets of Chicago, I wasn't sure I wanted a dose of sociology for bedside reading. But from the first page, where a has-been diva wrestles with her demons, I was hooked solidly, for all 386 pages of excitement, wit, violence, romance, and pathos.

The action centers on an underground garage wall at the Hotel Pleiades in Chicago. A homeless woman has set up a cardboard box home and a shrine beside a crack in a wall that weeps rusty water which she believes is the blood of the Virgin Mary. Other homeless women join her. The hotel is in a quandary. They can't afford the publicity of ousting women who may, just possibly, be practicing their religion. Yet hotel guests are complaining. The diva, whom we met on page one, joins the homeless women in her silk designer suit, somewhat soiled by now, and Italian heels. Once a world renowned opera singer, she has been "tough loved" out of her wealthy twin brother's house because of her problems with alcohol (and for running up $40,000 on his credit card). Mara Stonds, sister of the hotel's lawyer and illegitimate granddaughter of Dr. Abraham Stonds, eminent neurosurgeon, ends up at the wall, too. Against his better judgment, Dr. Stonds has taken in his daughter's baby, calling her Mara, which means "for the Lord has dealt bitterly with me." The cast of homeless women is buffeted about by do-gooders at Hagar's House a refuge for homeless women by church officials, mental health authorities, Dr. Stonds's hospital, and by the police. The church on Orleans Street holds Bible lessons for the homeless women, lessons they must attend if they are to get a bed for the night. The women's powerlessness is frightening and real, and the twists and turns of Ghost Country entertaining and thought provoking. I won't look at bag ladies in my own city the same way ever again.

"The sacred and the dispossessed meeting on the streets," is the way Sara Paretsky describes her vision of Ghost Country. Paretsky enthusiasts who look forward to each V.I. Warshawski mystery will find a different sort of book, but one that will not disappoint. When I…

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Ever since I read A Is for Alibi, 13 books ago, I've been hooked on the adventures of Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton's private investigator, who works out of Santa Teresa, California. I have followed Kinsey through B Is for Burglar, C Is for Corpse, all the way through M Is for Malice. The 14th in the series, N Is for Noose, is the best yet, and all of them rate five diamonds. Kinsey is brave, bright, funny, and human. I hurt for her when she's about to get a tetanus shot: The nurse comes back "holding the you-know-what on a little plastic tray like a snack." I chew the inside of my lip when fear shoots through her "like a bottle rocket, lighting my insides with a shower of adrenaline." I worry about her diet when she picks up a "pack of chips and a can of Pepsi" for dinner.

The setting for N Is for Noose is Nota Lake, a threadbare town on the eastern edge of the Sierras (ten gas stations and 22 motels), that caters to the less-than-wealthy ski crowd. Selma Newquist, the widow of a detective in the sheriff's department, hires Kinsey to find out why her husband, Tom, had been so distraught in the several weeks before his fatal heart attack. Kinsey has her doubts about the assignment, figuring Tom's behavior could be blamed on failing health or who knows what. She starts with no clues, several times coming close to backing out. Tom was respected. His colleagues liked him. He didn't seem to be messing around with other women. His finances were in order. Kinsey dutifully follows a few flimsy leads, and we're right there with her, wondering where she's being led. Then, as she digs deeper, she unearths more than she expected, and soon we're immersed in a can't-put-it-down adventure.

I'm not about to give the plot away, but it twists and turns in the most satisfying way. As in all the Kinsey Millhone books, she is real. The words on paper disappear, and we are with her, whether she is bemoaning her housekeeping, "Every time I buy parsley, it turns to slime," or reacting to a hunk, "I allowed myself one small inaudible whine of the sort heard only by dogs." If Kinsey were to step off the page, I would recognize her, understand her better than my own sister, sympathize with her frailties and shortcomings.

If this is your introduction to Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series, beware! You will find you need to make more shelf space for all 14 books, plus those to come. If you have already met Kinsey Millhone, join her growing fan club, waiting not-so-patiently for her next adventure, O Is for . . . ?

Reviewed by Cynthia Riggs.

Ever since I read A Is for Alibi, 13 books ago, I've been hooked on the adventures of Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton's private investigator, who works out of Santa Teresa, California. I have followed Kinsey through B Is for Burglar, C Is for Corpse, all the…

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When it was first published, the anonymously-authored Primary Colors–an obvious roman a clef about the Clintons–triggered a national guessing-game about the author's true identity. Appropriately, the Washington Post wound up outing Newsweek columnist Joe Klein (following Klein's blanket denials, to his comrades in print, that he was the author). The controversy didn't end there. When the bestseller went into production as a movie, there were raised eyebrows and barbed comments from pundits. After all, a mutual love-fest exists between the Clintons and Hollywood. Thus, the latest chapter in the Primary Colors saga concerns the book's "softening," so as not to offend the First Couple. Little wonder, since director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May are known as Clinton supporters. Even Joe Klein whose book sold to Hollywood for $1.5 million has been downplaying parallels between print and real life, saying his book isn't really about the Clintons. Never mind that the deftly-written political satire, about a Southern governor running for president in 1992 amid scandalous headlines of marital infidelities is clearly based on the travails of you-know-who.

Actually, not everyone is balking about the obvious similarities. John Travolta, who stars as the book's womanizing (and idealistic) candidate, readily admits he went for a "Clinton-esque illusion," with mimicked speech patterns, hair color and style, and physicality. Not that the popular, likable icon is going to play a bad boy. As he puts it in a George magazine interview, "You'd have to be dead not to see the script favors Clinton."

One thing is certain: the release of the movie adaptation couldn't be more timely, what with the ongoing headlines regarding the latest sex scandal to plague the presidency. Still, for an unbridled "take" on the political scene, it's near-impossible to top the original source material, Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics still credited to "Anonymous", narrated by actor Blair Underwood. What, you were expecting Travolta to do the honors?

The ubiquitous John Travolta will topline yet another adaptation of a best seller Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action. Due later this year from Touchstone Pictures, it's based on the real life account of attorney Jan Schlichtmann, who in the early eighties initiated a civil suit against two of the country's largest corporations on behalf of the families of young leukemia victims. (Over a period of years, the companies W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods had disposed of a cancer-causing industrial solvent by dumping it into the water supply of Woburn, Massachusetts.) A riveting page-turner, Harr's book gives readers a front-row seat to courtroom theatrics and infighting providing a meticulous look at the intricacies of our legal system, and all its flaws. As for the film version: no word, yet, on how it will differ from what's in print but expect the usual PR blitz, as befits Travolta's leading man status.

For a look back at the early Travolta when he was in his singing, dancing prime there's Frenchy's Grease Scrapbook, a behind-the-scenes look at the making, and the after-life, of the 1978 hit film Grease. A tie-in to the movie's 20th anniversary reissue, it's an innocuous reminder of the Eisenhower era, when everything including politics seemed so innocent.

When it was first published, the anonymously-authored Primary Colors--an obvious roman a clef about the Clintons--triggered a national guessing-game about the author's true identity. Appropriately, the Washington Post wound up outing Newsweek columnist Joe Klein (following Klein's blanket denials, to his comrades in print, that…

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Murder, mayhem, lust, and betrayal are rife among Oxford's ivory towers in Iain Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost. Set in the Restoration period, this masterfully crafted historical mystery is about how different people perceive and interpret a ghastly murder and its aftermath. As such, it is more of a literary exercise than a straight-forward mystery and one for which the diligent reader will be richly rewarded.

The murder of Robert Grove, fellow of New College, is recounted by four narrators, each with his own personal baggage and preconceptions about who perpetrated the crime. Marco da Cola, a foppish Venetian, is an expatriate in search of his father's debtors or so he professes. Jack Prescott is a paranoid schizophrenic bent on redressing his father's sullied name. The highly arrogant cryptographer, John Wallis, is on a similar quest to revenge the death of his companion. And the hermit-like Anthony Wood proffers his own account of the murder, all the while entranced by Sarah Blundy, a servant with strangely mystical qualities. Although she never narrates, Sarah is a ubiquitous presence, influencing and inciting each narrator with her stoic beauty, insolence and free-thinking notions.

Each narrator embodies Age-of-Enlightenment paradoxes and, to some degree, each is corrupted by prejudice and blinded by obsession. Emerging scientific theories and revolutionary insights clash with old-world superstitions. Characterizations are based on historical persons, and harrowing details (such as graphic scenes of medical experimentation) abound.

True to its title, the book itself is a fingerpost, playfully guiding the reader through philosophical conundrums concerning the nature of knowledge and truth while weaving an entertaining tale of gothic proportions. Among Oxford's dreaming spires, there lurks a brooding malevolence the perfect setting in which an aura of cloistered intrigue rings true. Epic-novel aficionados will not be disappointed.

Murder, mayhem, lust, and betrayal are rife among Oxford's ivory towers in Iain Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost. Set in the Restoration period, this masterfully crafted historical mystery is about how different people perceive and interpret a ghastly murder and its aftermath. As such,…

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