Publishers Weekly articles from April 2009

Publishers Weekly archives from April 2009

Indie booksellers debate the e-book conundrum: booksellers wonder what to sell and how to sell it.(Foreword)
April 13, 2009... "It's easy to experience fear and anxiety in the face of the e-book tipping point, which I believe is imminent," admitted Allison Hill, president and COO of Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, Calif. She's not alone. With so many e-book options...

Group speaks out over Kindle.(Authors Guild's on Kindle 2's text-to-speech function)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some zoo people with print disabilities--physical impairments that restrict their ability to read print--protested in front of the Authors Guild headquarters in New York City last week, rallying against the Guild's...

Jassin resigns as NYCIP chair.(New York Center for Independent Publishing's Lloyd Jassin)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Lloyd Jassin has resigned as chairman of the executive committee of the New York Center for Independent Publishing, citing differences with the General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen, which provides the financial support for NYCIP. The...

Consumer group protests Google deal.(Consumer Watchdog on Google-Association of American Publishers/ Authors Guild settlement)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... The consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog has asked the Justice Department to delaythe Google--AAP/ Authors Guild settlement until provisions regarding a most favored nation clause and orphan works can be reviewed. The group alleges that...

Quebecor in creditor deal.(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Quebecor has reached an agreement in principle with its major creditors on a reorganization plan that will allow it to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Although terms were not disclosed, Quebecor said the agreement "is consistent with [its]...

NavPress cuts nine.(NavPress Publishing cuts nine positions)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... A reorganization at NavPress has resulted in the elimination of nine positions. The evangelical Christian publisher divided its book publishing operations into trade publishing and direct publishing groups. Sue Kline will lead the trade group,...

Readers privacy campaign revved up.(Campaign for Reader Privacy)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... The Campaign for Reader Privacy sent a memo to Congress last week as the start of a new effort to have the USA Patriot Act revised before its likely extension by the end of the year. The memo notes that the Patriot Act, particularly Section...

Author Solutions buys Trafford.(Trafford Publishing and Author Solutions)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Author Solutions continued to expand its hold on the self-publishing market last week with the acquisition of Trafford Publishing. The purchase of Trafford, based in British Columbia and with a presence in the U.K., will help to accelerate...

O'Flynn reups with Holt.(Deals)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Helen Atsma at Holt has acquired two new novels by Catherine O'Flynn via Lucy Luck, who sold U.S. rights on option. The first is Evergreen, which follows a Birmingham, Ala., television news presenter who is "haunted by disappearances" involving...

Darhansoff duo.(Deals)(Liz Darhansoff on David Liss novels and The Marriage Book)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Liz Darhansoff at Darhansoff, Verrill, Feldman recently concluded a new deal for David Liss, with Jennifer Hershey at Random taking North American rights to two historical thrillers for mid six figures. Liss is most recently the author of The...

Beauty and beast at GC.(Deals)(Grand Central Publishing on George A. Romero's novels)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Karen Murgolo at Springboard outlasted multiple bidders in an auction for an untitled book by Cristina Carlino; Andrew Smart of the Stuart Agency sold world rights. This beauty book by Carlino, founder of and spokesperson for Philosophy, the...

Dijkstra in Oxford double.(Deals)(Sandra Dijkstra and Oxford University Press)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Susan Ferber at Oxford University Press has acquired world rights to Erika Lee and Judy Yung's Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America via Sandra Dijkstra. This narrative history of the immigrants who entered the country through the West...

Resetting the economy.(Deals)(Richard Florida's How the Economic Crisis Will Forever Change Our Economy, Society, and the Way We Live)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... James Levine at Levine Greenberg Literaty Agency has accepted several preempts for Richard Florida's Reset: How the Economic Crisis Will Forever Change Our Economy, Society, and the Way We Live. Hollis Heimbouch took the title in the U.S. for...

The briefing.(Deals)(Picador publishing on Jeff Chang's book)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... David Rogers at Picador has acquired world rights to a new book by Jeff-Chang for the imprint's Big Ideas/Small Books series; the topic is youth. Victoria Sanders made the sale; Picador published the paperback of Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop.

Some support for CBA Confab.(Foreword)(Canadian Booksellers Association conference)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... The Canadian Booksellers Association's newly announced conference set for June 20 and 21 has received some backing from publishers. Penguin Canada is the largest house to commit to taking a table-top display, and a number of independent...

Anderson & Friends.(Foreword)(Laurie Halse Anderson)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On March 28 Laurie Halse Anderson finished a two-week book tour for Wintergirls (Viking Juvenile) at BookPeople in Austin, Tex. Anderson, holding that chicken, posed with staffers from BookPeople.

A good time to be selling used books.(Bright Spot)
April 13, 2009... Not all businesses do badly in a recession; one segment of the book market that appears to be holding up fairly well is used books. "People are looking for bargains," said Kathy Doyle Thomas, executive v-p at the used bookstore chain Half-Price...

DVA expands book remainder niche.(Closeouts Up)(Distribution Video & Audio)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... In addition to used book retailers, another company that is having a good year is the closeout company Distribution Video & Audio. Although DVA has its roots in the DVD and CD market, it has a growing book business and now buys around five...

The incredibly shrinking Dalton.(Notes from the 10-k)(B. Dalton bookseller)
April 13, 2009... The closure of 33 Dalton outlets last year plus a drop in same-store sales resulted in a 20.1% decline in sales at Barnes & Noble's mall store operation, according to figures released in B&N's 10-k filing. B&N has been steadily phasing out...

HMH offers curious George iPhone App.(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishing on Curious George)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which started adapting its reference content for the iPhone and iPod Touch last summer, has released its first branded Curious George title, an app based on the August 2008 book Curious George's Dictionary. The app,...

Delacorte to do new Vonnegut.(Delacorte Press on Kurt Vonnegut's Look at the Birdie)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Kurt Vonnegut's longtime publisher, Delacorte Press, has announced it will issue 14 never-before-published short stories by the author, who died in 2007. The new collection, Look at the Birdie, is slated for publication in November, to coincide...

Hachette, SBTB settle.(Strictly-by-the Book and Hachette publishing)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Hachette and the remainder company Strictly-by-the Book have reached a settlement in an exchange of lawsuits filed in February in which Hachette charged SBTB with breach of contract and SBTB claimed Hachette was trying to put it out of...

Healthy industry warily eyes the digital future.(Touring Germany)(German publishing industry on e-books)
April 13, 2009... On the third day of the American editors' tour of the German publishing scene, the group arrived at Suhrkamp, the well-regarded-Frankfurt publisher of German and international literature, philosophy and social sciences. Nonfiction editor Eva...

Stein to LBBYR.(People)(Little, Brown Books for Young Readers' Erin Stein)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Erin Stein has been named executive editor of franchise and licensing programs at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. She will manage ongoing franchises as well as movie and media tie-in programs, and help shape the middle grade and YA...

Boison to DC Comics.(People)(Jeff Boison)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Jeff Boison has been named executive director of publishing operations at DC Comics. Boison was most recently director of sales for the Random House Audio Publishing Group.

Schwartz up at Random House.(People)(Carolyn Schwartz)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Carolyn Schwartz, who oversees marketing for Bantam/Dell, has added Ballantine to her marketing duties and has been given the new title of v-p, director of marketing, Ballantine/ Bantam/Dell (the three RH imprints that publish mass market...

Bole returns to BISG.(People)(Book Industry Study Group's Angela Bole)(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Angela Bole has returned to the Book Industry Study Group as deputy executive director. Bole had been associate director of BISG before leaving for a position as events manager at John Wiley.

Titan Books bucks the tide.(Pop Culture)
April 13, 2009... There's a recession going on, but Titan Books seems not to have noticed The U.K. publisher is a pop culture and entertainment powerhouse with an impressive list of blockbuster licenses from the film, TV, comics and toy businesses. Nick Landau,...

Hardcover bestsellers/fiction.(List)
April 13, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On the suitably creepy YouTube video promoting Lisa Jackson's latest, a ready-for-in-tones, "I know I buried my wife 12 years ago, but I saw her--today. Blowing me a kiss as If she were alive, but she can't be...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.(List)
April 13, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The tide of Michael J. Fox's bestseller refers to both his stature and his outlook on life (as the subtitle puts it, The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist). The indomitable spirit of this much-loved entertainer...

Paperback bestsellers/mass market.(List)
April 13, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The power of the tube strikes again. A Lifetime TV movie of Tribute debuted on April 11 (check your local listings for reruns), starring Brittany Murphy, Jason Lewis and Tippi Hedren. (Remember her? Alfred...

Paperback bestsellers/trade.(List)
April 13, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As devotees know, Watchmen didn't burst on the scene as a #1 movie. (Though it's doing just fine in that format: as of April 9 its domestic box office gross was $106 million.) The graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave...

Comics bestsellers.(List)
April 13, 2009... March 1 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw. Jeff Kinney. Abrams/Amulet, $12.95 ISBN 978-0-810-97068-7 2 Naruto, Volume 41. Mashashi Kishimoto. Viz Media, $7.95 ISBN 978-1-421-528427 3 Naruto, Volume 40. Mashashi Kishimoto. Viz...

Children's fiction bestsellers.(List)
April 13, 2009... April 13, 2009 1 The Graveyard Book. Neil Gaiman. HarperCollins, $17.99 ISBN 978-0-06-053092-1 2 City of Glass. Cassandra Clare. McElderry, $17.99 188N 978-1-416-91430-3 3 Evermore. Alyson Noel. St. Martin's Griffin, paper $9.99...

Dominique Raccah: entrepreneur built Sourcebooks book by book.(CHANGE MAKERS)(Interview)
April 13, 2009... If publisher Dominique Raccah is jetlagged after returning from the Bologna Book Fair the previous evening, she doesn't look it. Exuding energy, she whirls through our interview at Sourcebooks' Naperville, Ill., office, illustrating her remarks...

Hazelden looks back, moves forward.(Independent Publishing)(Hazelden Publishing )
April 13, 2009... Fifty-five years after releasing its first publication, Twenty-Four Hours a Day, a meditation book by Richmond Walker that still sells well above 100,000 copies every year, Hazelden Publishing is breathing new life into its trade list by...

Good worlds and bad: pure escapism and dystopian visions appeal to consumers unhappy with the here and now.(Cover story)
April 13, 2009... While some readers look for dark fiction to reflect Clark times, others just want to get away from it all. This has led to strong sales on all sides of science fiction and fantasy, from pulpy escapist romps to grim dystopian parables. "In down...

Tasmanian devil.(Author Profile)(Richard Flanagan)
April 13, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Richard Flanagan gets attention for his politics and his recent credit as the screenwriter for the Nicole Kidman movie Australia, but the Tasmanian native, whose Wanting is out in May from Atlantic Monthly Press,...

An Expensive Education.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... An Expensive Education Nick McDonell. Atlantic Monthly, $24 (256p) ISBH 978-0-8021-1893-6 McDonell's third novel, a story of the messy consequences attendant upon a rogue American operation conducted against a Somalian freedom fighter,...

Absent a Miracle.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Absent a Miracle Christine Lehner. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26 (496p) ISBN 978-0-15-1014294 Alice Fairweather, a Californian transplanted to the New York City suburbs with her Harvard-educated, Maine-born husband and their two...

Wife of the Gods.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Wife of the Gods Kwei Quartey. Random, $24 (336p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6759-6 Quartey's winning debut, a police procedural set in modern Ghana, introduces gifted detective Darko Dawson. Dawson leaves the capital city of Accra to investigate a...

I'm So Happy for You.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... I'm So Happy for You Lucinda Rosenfeld. Little, Brown/Back Bay, $13.99 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-316-04450-9 Rosenfeld (What She Saw) delves into the thornier side of female friendship in this hip take on modern womanhood. Wendy and Daphne...

Huge.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Huge James W. Fuerst. Crown, $23.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-307-45249-8 In his mind's eye, precocious 12-year-old Eugene "Huge" Smalls, the narrator of Fuerst's quirky debut, is the lineal descendant of Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and other pulp...

PW Talks with Kate Walbert: the woman question.(Q&A)(Interview)
April 13, 2009... NBA finalist Kate Walbert's A Short History of Women (Reviews, Feb. 2) follows several generations of women from the British suffrage movement through 1970s consciousness-raising to the age of Facebook as they struggle against oppression. ...

The Strain.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... * The Strain Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. Morrow, $26.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-06-155823-8 Director Del Toro (who won an Oscar for Pan's Labyrinth) makes a dramatic splash in his fiction debut, the first volume in a vampires vs....

The Actor and the Housewife.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Actor and the Housewife Shannon Hale. Bloomsbury, $24 (320p) ISBN 978-1-59691-288-5 This successful sophomore turn at chick lit (after Austenland) from YA and graphic novelist Hale sets up a platonic relationship between a dashing...

Fugitive.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Fugitive Philip Margolin. Harper, $26.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-123623-5 When the editor-in-chief of World News magazine offers Amanda Jaffe a $500,000 retainer to defend Charlie Marsh, an excon turned bestselling spiritual guru, in...

Gifts of War.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Gifts of War Mackenzie Ford. Doubleday/Talese, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-52895-5 A battlefield promise sends a British soldier on a romantic mission in Ford's debut, a historical that starts strong but meanders toward a muted finale....

Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel Jeffrey Deaver. Simon & Schuster, $26.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1-4165-4999-4 In bestseller Deaver's surprise-filled third Kathryn Dance novel (after The Sleeping Doll), Dance, an agent with the California...

Brodeck.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... * Brodeck Philippe Claudel, trans, from the French by John Cullen. Doubleday/Talese, $26 (336p) ISBN 978-0-385-52724-8 Coming across as the love child of Bela Tarr's film Werckmeister Harmoniak and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man...

Strangers.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Strangers Anita Brookner. Random, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6834-0 Brookner's 24th book is an often monotonous meditation on an elderly man's solitary existence. Much of the first several chapters are dedicated to 72-year-old Paul...

The Wish Maker.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Wish Maker All Sethi. Riverhead, $25.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1-59448-875-7 The turbulence of contemporary Pakistani politics is refracted through the intimate prism of a fractious extended family in this mature debut, written when the...

Tomato Rhapsody.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Tomato Rhapsody Adam Schell. Delacorte, $24 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-34333-6 From the very beginning of Schell's debut novel, a would-be Shakespearean fable set in a 16th-century Tuscan village, food lust takes center stage. While...

Personal Effects: Dark Art.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... * Personal Effects: Dark Art J.C. Hutchins and Jordan Weisman. St. Martin's Griffin, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-38382-4 Hutchins, author of the audiobook podcast trilogy 7th Son, makes his print debut with the stellar first of an...

Nowhere-Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation..(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Nowhere-Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation A.W. Hill. Counterpoint (PGW, dist.), $25 (448p) ISBN 978-1-58243-498-8 Fans of role-playing games will best appreciate Hill's genre-bending third novel to feature L.A. detective-shaman Stephan...

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Marriage Bureau for Rich People Farahad Zama. Putnam/Amy Einhorn, $24.95 (304p) ISSN 978-0-399-15558-1 A thriving arranged-marriage bureau in contemporary India resides at the heart of Zama's charming debut. The customers who visit Mr....

The Unit.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Unit Ninni Holmqvist, trans, from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy. Other Press, $14.95 paper (272p) ISBN 978-1-59051-313-2 Swedish author Holmqvist's unconvincing debut, part of a wave of dystopias hitting this summer, is set in a near...

Heroic Measures.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... * Heroic Measures Jill Ciment. Pantheon, $23 (208p) ISBN 978-0-375-42522-6 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ciment's spare and surprisingly gripping novel details one long weekend in the life of Ruth and Alex Cohen, an elderly New York couple...

Alien Hearts.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Alien Hearts Guy de Maupassant, trans, from the French by Richard Howard. New York Review Books, $14 paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-59017-260-5 Eminent translator Howard gives a leavened, modern feel to Maupassant's weary tale of a young...

Burned.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Burned David Hagberg. Forge, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1795-7 Australian Yvonne Bornstein--who was abducted along with her husband by Chechen terrorists in Russia in 1992 and wrote a memoir of her experience, Eleven Days of Hall--serves...

Come Sunday.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Come Sunday Isla Morley. Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-374-12687-2 In her poignant first novel, former South African magazine editor Morley explores a mother's grief. Abbe Deighton, part-time journalist and...

Lime Tree Can't Bear Orange.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Lime Tree Can't Bear Orange Amanda Smyth. Crown/Shaye Areheart, $23 (288p) ISBN 978-0-307-46064-6 In Smyth's enchanting debut, set in Black Rock, Tobago, young protagonist Celia D'Abadie searches for traces of her absent lineage--the...

Captive Audience.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Captive Audience Dave Reidy. Ig (Consortium, dist.), $14.95 paper (200p) ISBN 978-0-9815040-4-9 Reidy's youthful Collection weaves real-life personas with fictional characters, placing them in settings that reflect the oddities of the...

The Price of Sanctuary.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Price of Sanctuary Gaylon Greer. Medallion (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-1-60542-058-5 In Greer's unconvincing fiction debut, two hit men pursue history professor Shelby Le Cervoisier after she unwittingly assists a rogue...

Summer House.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Summer House Nancy Thayer. Ballantine, $24 (368p) ISBN 978-0-345-49820-5 Thayer (Shell Moon Beach) explores the tarnished interior of a family of Boston bankers as well as the more polished exterior they display in public in this tepid...

This Is How It Starts.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... This Is How It Starts Grant Ginder. Simon & Schuster, $14 paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9559-5 A University of Pennsylvania graduate moves to Washington, D.C., to work as a congressional aide in Ginder's lightly cynical Bright Lights, Big...

The Year That Follows.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Year That Follows Scott Lasser. Knopf, $23 (256p) ISBN 978-0-307-27119-8 A daughter and her father navigate "the year that follows" September 11, revealing secrets and healing old wounds in this slightly higher-brow Nicholas Sparksian...

East of the Sun.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... East of the Sun Julia Gregson.Touchstone, $16 paper (512p) ISBN 978-1-4391-0112-4 British author Gregson bows in America with her fast-paced second novel, an absorbing international period drama concerning three young Englishwomen and a...

Pulse.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Pulse Jeremy Robinson. St. Martin's/Dunne, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-54028-9 Greek myth and biotechnology collide in Robinson's first in a new thriller series to feature the Chess Team, an elite Delta Force unit whose members each use a...

The Cavalier of the Apocalypse.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... * The Cavalier of the Apocalypse Susanne Alleyn. Minotaur, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-00312-37988-9 After two mysteries set in the aftermath of the French Revolution, Game of Patience (2006) and A Treasury of Regrets (2007), Alleyn recounts...

Choker.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Choker Frederick Ramsay. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (290p) ISBN 978-1-59058-635-8 Ike Schwartz returns to his CIA roots in Ramsey's awkward cozy-thriller hybrid, the fifth in the series to feature the Picketsville, Va., sheriff (after 2008's...

Hogdoggin'.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Hogdoggin' Anthony Neil Smith. Bleak I-louse (www.bleak-housebooks.com), $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-1-60648-024-3; $14.95 paper ISBN 978-1-60648-025-0 The squeamish will want to avoid this violence-laden sequel to Smith's Yellow Medicine...

Seattle Noir.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Seattle Noir Edited by Curt Colbert. Akashic, $15.95 paper (300p) ISBN 978-1-933354-80-4 If the 14 entries in Akashic's rainy city noir volume were school compositions, a teacher would likely assign mostly As and Bs and nothing below a C....

The Last Llanelli Train.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Last Llanelli Train Robert Lewis. Serpent'sTail, $14.95 paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-85242-890-7 Welsh author Lewis holds nothing back in this unflinching noir, his second novel to feature PI Robin Llywelyn to be made available in the U.S....

Thicker than Water.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Thicker than Water Anthea Fraser. Severn, $28.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7278-6752-0 Three separate lives eerily intersect in this effective if lightweight mystery from U.K. veteran Fraser (Next Door to Murder), When businessman James Markham...

The Puzzle of Piri Reis: A Tony Boudreaux Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Puzzle of Piri Reis: A Tony Boudreaux Mystery Kent Conwell. Avalon, $23.95 (272p) ISSN 978-0-8034-9958-4 At the outset of Conwell's middling 10th Tony Boudreaux mystery (after 2008's The Crystal Skull Murders), San Antonio resident Ted...

The Odds.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Odds Kathleen George. Minotaur/Dunne, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-54999-2 Four extraordinary and resilient youngsters lift George's enjoyable fourth police procedural to feature Pittsburgh homicide chief Richard Christie and his team...

The Westminster Poisoner.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... * The Westminster Poisoner Susanna Gregory. Sphere (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (480p) ISBN 978-1-84744-100-3 Gregory's excellent fourth Thomas Chaloner adventure set in Restoration London (after 2008's The Butcher of Smithfield) effortlessly...

The City & the City.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... * The City & the City China Mieville. Del Rey, $26 (336p) ISBN 978-0-345-49751-2 Better known for New Weird fantasies (Perdido Street Station, etc.), bestseller Mirville offers an outstanding take on police procedurals with this barely...

The Third Sign.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Third Sign Gregory A. Wilson. Five Star, $25.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-59414-765-4 Wilson's cliche-laden fantasy debut opens with callow youth Calen fleeing from an unprecedented attack upon his city. He seeks out forestwalker legend Arvan...

Overthrowing Heaven.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Overthrowing Heaven Mark L. Van Name. Baen, $25 (416p) ISBN 978-1-4139-3267-8 The third installment of Van Name's space opera saga (after 2008's Slanted Jack) follows the same basic formula as the previous novels: two-dimensional...

Hazards: The Chronicles of Lucifer Jones, 1934-1938.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... Hazards: The Chronicles of Lucifer Jones, 1934-1938 Mike Resnick. Subterranean, $35 (280p) ISBN 978-1-59606-230-6 This entertaining collection follows con artist, minister and adventurer Lucifer Jones, last seen in 1992's Exploits, as he...

The Edge of the World: Terra Incognita, Book One.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... The Edge of the World: Terra Incognita, Book One Kevin J. Anderson. Orbit, $14.99 paper (624p) ISBN 978-0-316-00418-3 Having wound up his seven-volume space opera, the Saga of Seven Suns, bestseller Anderson moves hesitantly into fantasy...

Fake I.D.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 13, 2009... * Fake I.D. Jason Starr. Hard Case Crime, $6.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8439-6118-8 Starr (The Follower) traces the life of a New York bar bouncer down on his luck in this sinister noir tale. Tommy Russo, an aspiring actor, wants in on the deal...