Booklist articles from May 2004

Booklist archives from May 2004

Mystery showcase.(Editorial)
May 1, 2004... This issue features our eighth annual Mystery Showcase Over the years, we've reviewed approximately 750 new mysteries in these special issues, which amounts to nearly 2,000 dead bodies (someone once calculated that there are on average 2.5...

Bragg, Melvyn. The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Bragg, Melvyn. The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. May 2004. 336p. illus. index. Arcade, $27.95 (1-55970-710-0). (420) Why do Americans say fall when the British say autumn? How was English altered by the Black Death?...

Moyers, Bill. Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Moyers, Bill. Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times. May 2004. 224p. New Press, $24.95 (1-56584-892-6). (973.931). Award-winning journalist Moyers offers a thoughtful and caustic look at American politics This first time collection...

Sedaris, David. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Sedaris, David. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. June 2004. 288p. Little, Brown, $24.95 (0-316-14346-4). (813) Sedaris' piquant essays are as meticulously honed and precisely timed as the best stand-up comic routines, which is, of...

Vidal, Gore. Imperial America.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Vidal, Gore. Imperial America. June 2004. 169p. Nation Books, $18 (1-56025-585-4). (327.73). Like Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (2002) and Dreaming War (2003), this final volume in Vidal's trilogy attacking the "Cheney-Bush junta"...

Butler, Robert Olen. Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Butler, Robert Olen. Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards. Aug. 2004. 288p. illus. Grove, $23 (0-8021-1777-5). Butler is a supremely versatile and questing fiction writer, and his 13 books run the gamut from zestful social...

Hearn, Lian. Brilliance of the Moon (Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Hearn, Lian. Brilliance of the Moon: Tales of the Otori, Book Three. June 2004. 352p. Riverhead, $24.95 (1-57322-270-4). The third book in the Otori trilogy picks up where Grass for His Pillow [BKL Jl 03] left off, just after the wedding of...

King, Stephen. Song of Susannah.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... King, Stephen. Song of Susannah. June 2004. 432p. Scribner/ Donald M. Grant, $30 (1-880418-59-2). King's epical Dark Tower hastens to a close, and its penultimate volume is one of the speediest. The gunslingers of Mid-World and other...

Koontz, Dean. The Taking.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Koontz, Dean. The Taking. May 2004.338p. Bantam, $27 (0-553-80250-X). A glowing rain begins falling at one am. in the San Bernardino Mountains of California, where productive but hardly best-selling novelist Molly Sloan and her ex-priest...

O'Dell, Tawni. Coal Run.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * O'Dell, Tawni. Coal Run. July 2004. 354p. Viking, $24.95 (0-670-89995-X). As in Back Roads (1999), O'Dell's debut novel, which became an Oprah selection, the setting here is a run-down Pennsylvania mining town, but this time there is far...

Oates, Joyce Carol. The Falls.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Oates, Joyce Carol. The Falls. Sept. 2004. 496p. Ecco, $26.95 (0-06-072228-2). From Oates' fevered imagination comes a sprawling, ambitious novel with enough material to fill several books. The thoroughly absorbing story line tracks 30...

The year's best crime novels.(Mystery Showcase)(Bibliography)
May 1, 2004... The last 12 months certainly didn't represent a high point in this country's history--especially on international and diplomatic fronts--but you would need to look very hard to find another year in which more outstanding crime fiction was...

A hard-boiled gazetteer to Southern California.(Mystery Showcase)(crime novels)(Bibliography)
May 1, 2004... "It's a great, sprawling, spread-to-hell city that protects us by its sheer size. Four hundred sixty-five square miles. Eleven million beating hearts in Los Angeles County, documented and not. Eleven million. What are the odds?...

Writing suspense for teens: my three rules.(Column)
May 1, 2004... When people find out I write fiction for a living, they a ways ask, "What kind?" This simple question can reduce me to stuttering. Because most adults' knowledge of current youth fiction is limited to Harry Potter, using the term young adult...

The Cat Who Talked Turkey.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
May 1, 2004... The Cat Who Talked Turkey. By Lillian Jackson Braun. Read by George Guidall. 2004. 4.5hr. unabr. Recorded Books. CS, $39 (1-4025-7471-1) CD, $49 (1-4025-7434-8). 800-638-1304. The murders that occur in this latest "Cat Who" title seem...

The Conspiracy Club.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
May 1, 2004... The Conspiracy Club. By Jonathan Kellerman. Read by Rob Kahn. 2004. 9hr. unabr. Books on Tape. CS, $72 (0-7366-9432-3). CD, $90 (0-7366-9555-9). 800-541-5525. Rebounding from his girlfriend's brutal murder, psychologist Jeremy Carrier is...

Engaged to Die.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
May 1, 2004... Engaged to Die. By Carolyn Hart. Read by Kate Reading. 2003. 10.5hr. unabr. Books on Tape. CS, $56 (0-7366-9358-0). 800-541-5525. At the aptly named Death on Demand bookstore, dead bodies keep popping up. In Hart's latest title featuring...

Playing with Fire.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
May 1, 2004... Playing with Fire. By Peter Robinson. Read by Ron Keith. 2004. 14hr. unabr. Recorded Books. CS, $89 (1-4025-7546-7). CD, $109 (1-4025-7548-3). 800-638-1304. Two unexplained fires rouse the suspicions of inspectors Alan Banks and Annie...

Suspicion of Madness.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
May 1, 2004... Suspicion of Madness. By Barbara Parker Read by William Dufris and Christine Marshall. 2004. 12.5hr. unabr. BBC/Sound Library. CS, $69.95 (0-7927-3098-4). CD, $94.95 (0-7927-3099-2). 800-621-0182. This latest mystery featuring attorneys...

The Winter Queen.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
May 1, 2004... The Winter Queen. By Boris Akunin. Read by Michael Kramer. 2004. 9hr. unabr. Books on Tape. CS, $54 (0-7366-9690-3). CD, $63 (0-7366-9900-7). 800-541-5525. Kramer, a flawless and engaging reader, masterfully handles the polysyllabic names...

The Zero Game.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
May 1, 2004... The Zero Game. By Brad Meltzer. Read by Scott Brick. 2004. 15hr. unabr. Time Warner. CS, $44.98 (1-58621-604-X). 800-759-0190; BBC/Sound Library, lib. ed. CS, $79.95 (0-7927-3109-3). CD, $94.95 (0-7927-3110-7). 800-621-0182. Nonstop action...

Top 10 audiobook mysteries.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
May 1, 2004... Murder is in the air. Nine of the top 10 audiobook mysteries (reviewed in Booklist from May 1, 2003, through April 15, 2004) serve up murder most foul. Murderous acts motivated by revenge, power, or greed are carried out by hit men, kidnappers,...

Blood, Bedlam, Bullets, and Badguys: A Reader's Guide to Adventure/Suspense Fiction.(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Blood, Bedlam, Bullets, and Badguys: A Reader's Guide to Adventure/Suspense Fiction. By Michael B. Gannon. 2004. 385p. appendixes. glossary. indexes. Libraries Unlimited, $55 (1-56308-732-4). 016.813. Certain adventure and suspense novels...

Mystery Women: an Encyclopedia of Leading Women Characters in Mystery Fiction.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Mystery Women: An Encyclopedia of Leading Women Characters in Mystery Fiction. v.3 (1990-1999). By Colleen Barnett. 2003. indexes. Poisoned Pen, paper, $24.95 (1-59058-049-4). 813. Barnett started collecting novels featuring female...

Reference and Research Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction.(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Reference and Research Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction. 2d ed. By Richard J. Bleiler. 2004. 828p. appendix indexes. Libraries Unlimited, $78 (1-56308-924-6). 016.823. As evidence of the enduring popularity of the genre, "a...

Bone, Ian. The Song of an Innocent Bystander.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Bone, Ian. The Song of an innocent Bystander. June 2004. 276p. Dutton, $16.99 (0-525-47282-7). Gr. 10-12. Australian writer Bone's murky novel about the ramifications of a hostage crisis on one of its survivors isn't easy to follow, but...

Bryant, Jen. The Trial.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Bryant, Jen. The Trial. 2004. 192p. Knopf, $14.95 (0-375-82752-8); lib. ed., $16.99 (0-375-92752-2). Gr. 5-9. "Nothing much happens but eggs, chickens, and Santa Claus," complains restless Katie Leigh Flynn about life in her small New...

Butcher, A. J. Spy High: Mission One.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Butcher, A. J. Spy High: Mission One. May 2004. 224p. Little, Brown, $15.95 (0-316-73759-3); paper, $6.99 (0-316-73760-7). Gr. 7-10. In the first pages of this breezy thriller set in the year 2060, readers meet the Bond Team, a group of...

Hoobler, Dorothy and Hoobler, Thomas. In Darkness, Death.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Hoobler, Dorothy and Hoobler, Thomas. In Darkness, Death. 2004. 208p. Putnam/ Philomel, $16.99 (0-399-23767-4). Gr. 7-10. This is the third installment in the authors' series of intriguing mysteries set in eighteenth-century Japan,...

Lynch, Chris. The Gravedigger's Cottage.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Lynch, Chris. The Gravedigger's Cottage. June 2004. 208p. HarperCollins, $15.99 (0-06-623940-0); lib. ed., $16.89 (0-06-623941-9). Gr. 6-9. Fourteen-year-old Sylvia McLuckie has lost many things to death: her mother; the mother of her...

Story behind the story Blue Balliett's Chasing Vermeer.(Interview)
May 1, 2004... Here's a mystery: how was a first-time children's novelist able to manage the complex, ingenious plotting that makes Chasing Vermeer come together? As our starred review of the book in the April 1, 2004, Booklist notes, Blue Balliett's debut,...

Rabb, M. E. The Chocolate Lover.(Rabb, M. E. The Rose Queen)(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Rabb, M. E. The Chocolate Lover. 2004, 192p. Penguin/Speak, paper, $5.99 (0-14-250042-9). Rabb, M. E. The Rose Queen. 2004. 192p. Penguin/Speak, paper, $5.99 (0-14-250041-0) Gr. 7-10. The first titles in the new Missing Persons mystery...

Roberts, Willo Davis. Blood on His Hands.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Roberts, Willo Davis. Blood on His Hands. July 2004. 192p. Simon & Schuster, $16.95 (0-689-85074-3). Gr. 6-8. The three-time Edgar Award winner strays a bit from her usual territory here, though she still manages to create a sense of...

Thurlo, David and Thurlo, Aimee. The Spirit Line.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Thurlo, David and Thurlo, Aimee. The Spirit Line. 2004 224p. Viking, $15.99 (0-670-03645-5). Gr. 6-10. The Thurlos, best known for their adult mysteries about Ella Clah, an investigator for the Navajo police, return to the reservation in...

Updale, Eleanor. Montmorency.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Updale, Eleanor. Montmorency. 2004. 240p. Scholastic/Orchard, $16.95 (0-439-58035-8). Gr. 6-9. "Sewage stinks, but rich people, on the whole, don't." This truism forms the core of Updale's Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde-style crime story. When...

Eden, Alexandra. Holy Smoke: A Bones and Duchess Mystery.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Eden, Alexandra. Holy Smoke: A Bones and Duchess Mystery. May 2004. 112p. Allen A. Knoll, $16 (1-888310-46-4). Gr. 5-7. An ex-cop and a 12-year-old girl solving crimes? Odd, yes, but that's exactly what Bones Fatzinger and Verity Buscador...

Hale, Bruce. Give My Regrets to Broadway.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Hale, Bruce. Give My Regrets to Broadway. 2004. 112p. illus. Harcourt, $14 (0-15-216700-5). Gr. 3-5. All the world's a stage, and all the players are suspects in fourth-grade lizard sleuth Chet Gecko's eighth mystery. Emerson Hickey...

Holm, Jennifer and Hamel, Jonathan. The Stink Files, Dossier 001: The Postman Always Brings Mice.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Holm, Jennifer and Hamel, Jonathan. The Stink Files, Dossier 001: The Postman Always Brings Mice. Illus. by Brad Weinman. June 2004. 144p. HarperCollins, $14.99 (0-06-052979-2); lib. ed., $15.89 (0-06-052980-6). Gr. 3-5. The subtitle won't...

Keene, Carolyn. A Race against Time.(Keene, Carolyn. Without a Trace)(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Keene, Carolyn. A Race against Time. 2004 160p. Simon & Schuster/Aladdin, paper, $4.99 (0-689-86567-8). Keene, Carolyn. Without a Trace. 2004. 160p. Simon & Schuster/Aladdin, paper, $4.99 (0-689-86566-X). Gr. 4-7. Nancy Drew gets an...

Kline, Suzy. Horrible Harry and the Locked Closet.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Kline, Suzy. Horrible Harry and the Locked Closet. Illus. by Frank Remkiewicz. Sept. 2004. 80p. Viking, $13.99 (0-670-05944-7). Gr. 24. Although the entries in Kline's popular chapter-book series about the kids in Room 3B aren't usually...

Reiss, Kathryn. Sweet Miss Honeywell's Revenge: A Ghost Story.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Reiss, Kathryn. Sweet Miss Honeywell's Revenge. June 2004. 288p. Harcourt, $17 (0-15-216574-61. Gr. 4-7. A dollhouse takes a dark turn in this novel that will please mystery fans as well as readers who like ghost stories, Zibby Thorne...

Weltman, June. Mystery of the Missing Candlestick.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Weltman, June. Mystery of the Missing Candlestick. 2004. 216p. Mayhaven, $23.95 (1-878044-98-2). Gr. 5 8. Seventeen-year-old Miranda and her friends Rebecca and Leila learn that a very old silver candlestick has been stolen from Rebecca's...

Top 10 youth mysteries.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... You'll find some familiar authors in the list below, including Nancy Werlin and Wendelin Van Draanen, who have consistently produced first-class mysteries for youth daring the last few years. But you'll also notice some new names, whose very...

Adler, David A. Young Cam Jansen and the New Girl Mystery.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Adler, David A. Young Cam Jansen and the New Girl Mystery. Illus by Susanna Natti. May 2004. 32p. Viking, $13.99 (0-670-05915-3). PreS-Gr. 2. Although spunky Cam (short for Camera) Jansen has an amazing memory, the "mysteries" she solves in...

Nash, Scott. Tuff Fluff: the Case of Duckie's Missing Brain.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Nash, Scott. Tuff Fluff: The Case of Duckie's Missing Brain. May 2004. 32p. illus. Candlewick, $16.99 (0-7636-1882-9). Gr. 1-3. In Los Attic, if a toy wants a case solved, it goes to hard-boiled PI rabbit Tuff Fluff. Bluebell the bear asks...

Andrews, Robert. A Murder of Justice.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Andrews, Robert. A Murder of Justice. Sept. 2004. 284p. Putnam, $24.95 (0-399-15039-0). Skeeter Hodges is no loss to Washington's mean streets. He's an amoral drug dealer whose past is littered with dead rivals and intimidated witnesses....

Barclay, Linwood. Bad Move.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Barclay, Linwood. Bad Move. June 2004 320p. Bantam, $22 (0-553-80385-9). Paranoid science-fiction author Zack walker, his wife, and two teenagers move from the city to the suburbs, where they hope to be safe from crime. But Zack still sees...

Barre, Richard. Echo Bay.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Barre, Richard. Echo Bay. May 2004. 354p. Capra, $25.95 (1-59266-042-8). Constance was once the pride of Lake Tahoe's Echo Bay, but the Depression sunk it, figuratively and literally. Now, in 1940, investors have a plan to resurrect the...

Black, Ingrid. The Dead.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Black, Ingrid. The Dead. June 2004. 320p. St. Martin's/Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, $23.95 (0-312-32632-7). In a genre filled with Bible-quoting, women-hating serial killers who target prostitutes, Black's debut, set in a sharply detailed...

Billingham, Mark. Lazybones.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Billingham, Mark. Lazybones. June 2004. 320p. Morrow, $24.95 (0-06-056085-1). In this third engrossing police procedural from the talented Billingham, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne and his London-based serious crimes unit must track...

Born, James O. Walking Money.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Born, James O. Walking Money. July 2004. 272p. Putnam, $23.95 (0-399-15169-9). The title here wittily evokes both the shell game of the plot, in which a fortune appears and disappears in various boxes and briefcases, and the motivation...

Box, C. J. Trophy Hunt.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Box, C. J. Trophy Hunt. July 2004 384p. Putnam, $24.95 (0-399-15200-8). Box, whose superb Joe Pickett series has nailed some great western issues (ecoterrorism, endangered species, survivalists), here draws a bead on one out in left field:...

Buffa, D. W. Breach of Trust.(Burke, Alafair. Missing Justice)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Buffa, D. W. Breach of Trust. June 2004. 384p. Putnam, $24.95 (0-399-15190-7). Even though he is one of the best defense attorneys in the country, the ever-modest, plain-speaking Joseph Antonelli dreads attending his Harvard Law School...

Chang, Leonard. Fade to Clear.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Chang, Leonard. Fade to Clear. May 2004. 336p. St. Martin's/Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, $23.95 (0-312-30845-0). Fans of contemplative crime fiction should enjoy the third outing of Korean American sleuth Allen Choice. In addition to nurturing a...

Connelly, Michael. The Narrows.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Connelly, Michael. The Narrows. May 2004. 352p. Little, Brown, $25.95 (0-316-15530-6), Too often when crime novelists bring together characters from different series or combine plot strands from earlier novels, the results seem awkward...

Cockey, Tim. Backstabber.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Cockey, Tim. Backstabber. July 2004. 368p. Hyperion, $21.95 (0-7868-6713-2). No more hearse puns (Hears of a Different Color, etc.) this time, but Cockey's screwball mystery series starring undertaker-sleuth Hitchcock Sewell remains in...

Greenwald, Marilyn S. The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Greenwald, Marilyn S. The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate. July 2004. 302p. illus. index. Ohio Univ., $32.95 (0-8142-1547-6). 813 For this reviewer--and for thousands of other young readers--the...

Green, Norman. Way Past Legal.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Green, Norman. Way Past Legal. June 2004. 272p. HarperCollins, $24.95 (0-06-056454-7). Writers with criminals for heroes have problems on their hands, the greatest being the question of how one makes the criminal sympathetic without...

Collins, Barbara and Collins, Max Allan. Bombshell.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Collins, Barbara and Collins, Max Allan. Bombshell. May 2004. 232p. Five Star, $25.95 (1-59414-202-5). It's 1959, the cold war is escalating, and Nikita Khrushchev is coming to the U.S. Along with the expected official meetings, Khrushchev...

Craig, Philip R. Murder at a Vineyard Mansion.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Craig, Philip R. Murder at a Vineyard Mansion. June 2004. 272p. Scribner, $24 (0-7432-4676-4). Jefferson W. Jackson--J.W. to his friends--narrates this fourteenth Martha's Vineyard mystery in his usual sardonic and amiable voice. What...

Harvey, John. Flesh and Blood.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Harvey, John. Flesh and Blood. July 2004. 384p. Carroll & Graf, $25 (0-7867-1359-3). Frank Elder had been a detective inspector with the Nottinghamshire police when his marriage fell apart. Now retired and relocated to distant Cornwall,...

D'Amato, Barbara. Death of a Thousand Cuts.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... D'Amato, Barbara. Death of a Thousand Cuts. June 2004. 336p. Forge, $24.95 (0-765-30345-0). D'Amato does a riff on paranoid thrillers like Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None in this ingenious suspense procedural. The story is told...

Deaver, Jeffery. Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Deaver, Jeffery. Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936. July 2004. 432p. Simon & Schuster, $24.95 (0-7432-2201-6). Here's a real change of pace from the author of the Lincoln Rhyme series: a thriller set in 1936, the year of the Berlin...

Hewson, David. Lucifer's Shadow.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... * Hewson, David. Lucifer's Shadow. Aug. 2004. 384p. Delacorte, $21.95 (0-385-33794-9). This intelligent and highly detailed thriller by British author Hewson (A Season for the Dead, 2003) rivals Perez-Reverte's The Flanders Panel (1994) in...

Disher, Gary. The Dragon Man.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Disher, Gary. The Dragon Man. Aug. 2004. 246p. Soho, $23 (1-56947-356-0). A serial killer targeting young women is on the loose on the Old Peninsula Highway, located on a comma-shaped peninsula jutting into the sea, southeast of Melbourne....

Emerson, Earl. Pyro.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Emerson, Earl. Pyro. Aug. 2004. 288p. Ballantine, $24.95 (0-345-46288-2). A rash of arsons in Seattle's Central District pits Lieutenant Paul Wolff against the craven pyromaniac who just may have been responsible for the death of his...

Estleman, Loren D. Retro.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Estleman, Loren D. Retro. June 2004 304p. Forge, $24.95 (0-765-30448-1). When time ran out on legendary Detroit madam Beryl Garnet, PI Amos Walker, a longtime acquaintance of Garnet, was asked to deliver her ashes to her son. The only...

Evanovich, Janet. Ten Big Ones.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Evanovich, Janet. Ten Big Ones. June 2004, 320p. St. Martin's, $26.95 (0-312-28972-3). Although the strain of keeping her formula fresh and funny shows a bit in this latest adventure of New Jersey's most unusual bond enforcement agent,...

Fawcett, Quinn. Honor among Spies.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Fawcett, Quinn. Honor among Spies. May 2004. 352p. Forge, $24.95 (0-312-87644-0). Ian Fleming would like to put his World War II espionage career and his grisly post-war assassination duties behind him. Not possible, thanks to a plea for...

Forbes, Leslie. Waking Raphael.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Forbes, Leslie. Waking Raphael. June 2004. 432p. Bantam, $25 (0-553-38281-0). Forbes' latest departs from India, the setting of her previous literary thrillers--Bombay Ice (1998) and Fish, Blood and Bone (2001)--and moves to idyllic...

Fowler, Christopher. Full Dark House.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Fowler, Christopher. Full Dark House. June 2004 368p. Bantam, $24 (0-553-80387-5). A very old-fashioned, somewhat fusty read, redeemed by an absolutely riveting account of London during the Blitz. The focus is on the oldest detectives in...

Fowler, Earlene. Broken Dishes.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Fowler, Earlene. Broken Dishes. May 2004 288p. Berkley Prime Crime, $23.95 (0-425-19597-X). This satisfying series, in which the titles all come from quilt patterns, takes a different turn as Benni Harper spends a couple of weeks on a...

Fraser, Anthea. Jigsaw.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Fraser, Anthea. Jigsaw. June 2004. 256p Severn, $27.99 (0-7278-6065-8). Freelance journalist Rona Parish is writing a series of articles on the quaint English village of Buckford, which will soon celebrate its 800th anniversary. She...

Grippando, James. Hear No Evil.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Grippando, James. Hear No Evil. Aug. 2004 320p HarperCollins, $2395 (0-06-056457-1) The latest Jack Swyteck mystery finds the Miami defense lawyer in unfamiliar territory. When a woman asks him to defend her against the charge of murdering...

Hamilton, Steve. Ice Run.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Hamilton, Steve. Ice Run. June 2004. 320p. St. Martin's/Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, $21.95 (0-312-30121-9). Murders from 30 years ago lead to present danger in Edgar and Anthony Award-winning Hamilton's latest snowbound mystery...

Harwood, John. The Ghost Writer.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Harwood, John. The Ghost Writer. July 2004. 384p. Harcourt, $25 (0-15-101074-9). Harwood's debut is a haunting literary gothic, a slow-building suspense thriller about family secrets and ghosts that is reminiscent of both Seamus Deane's...

Hayes, Teddy. Blood Red Blues.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Hayes, Teddy. Blood Red Blues. June 2004. 200p. Justin, Charles/Kate's Mystery Books, paper, $12.99 (1-932112-21-9). Devil Barnett may have quit the CIA to run his dead father's bar in Harlem, but the quiet life remains elusive He's only...

Highsmith, Patricia. Small g.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Highsmith, Patricia. Small g. June 2004. 320p. Norton, $24.95 (0-393-05923-5). This final book from esteemed crime writer Highsmith, who died in 1995, is more a complement to her pseudonymous lesbian novel Price of Salt than to her better...

Holding, Elisabeth Sanxay. The Death Wish/Net of Cobwebs.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Holding, Elisabeth Sanxay. The Death Wish/Net of Cobwebs. June 2004. 277p. Stark House, paper, $19.95 (0-9667848-9-8). The publisher has a good eye for neglected crime writing, following Peter Raber's The Box/ Journey into Terror [BKL Mr 15...

Hoyt, Richard. Pony Girls.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Hoyt, Richard. Pony Girls. June 2004 288p Forge, $24.95 (0-765-30616-6). This rollicking, ramshackle pastiche of Carlos Castaneda, Tom Robbins, Zane Grey, and an old Saint novel finds the unreconstructed hippie detective John Denson and...

Jackson, Jon A. No Man's Dog.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Jackson, Jon A. No Man's Dog. July 2004. 368p, Grove/Atlantic, $24 (0-87113-920-0). With La Donna Detroit (2000) and Badger Games (2002), the focus of Jackson's superb series has been more on Mob fixer Joe Service and Iris lover, former...

Jaffe, Michele. Loverboy.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Jaffe, Michele. Loverboy. June 2004 448p Ballantine, paper, $14.95 (0-345-49924-7) Legendary FBI agent Imogen Page has a rare condition called synesthesia, in which her brain transmits sights, sounds, and images as flavors. The mingling of...

Katzenbach, John. The Madman's Tale.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Katzenbach, John. The Madman's Tale. July 2004. 432p. Ballantine, $24.95 (0-345-46481-8) The narrator isn't exactly a madman but, rather, someone whose madness is quieted by meds. "It is a very hard thing, in this time of ours, to be mad...

Kellogg, Marne Davis. Priceless.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Kellogg, Marne Davis. Priceless. July 2004 320p St. Martin's, $23.95 (0-312-30381-5) Kellogg's cat burglar heroine, Kick Kewswick, makes a welcome return in a tale so lush and lavish readers won't know what to sigh over first, the...