Publishers Weekly articles from August 2007

Publishers Weekly archives from August 2007

Silence is golden for Perseus: PGW transition brings few complaints.(PERSEUS distribution)(Perseus Books Group, PGW Acquisition Corp.)
August 6, 2007... The August 1 transition date came and went quietly for the Perseus Books Group, with few complaints from clients or retailers over the integration of PGW into the existing Perseus operation. After it acquired the distribution contracts for 124...

Hachette forms India division.(Hachette Livre UK)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Hachette Livre UK has formed Hachette Book Publishing India, a new division to be run out of New Delhi. The company has poached Penguin Books India CEO Thomas Abraham to run the operation, which is scheduled to open in the first quarter of...

Bryan to head Penguin India.(Mike Bryan)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... On the heels of Thomas Abraham's defection to Hachette to run its Indian division, Penguin has named Mike Bryan CEO and president of Penguin India. Bryan, who is slated to start in the position on September 1, has been at Penguin for 27 years...

Gimme tax shelter.(Foreword)(consequence to deal in publishing Keith Richards memoirs)
August 6, 2007... Except for the very obvious one above, I'm not going to make any punny jokes about Rolling Stone Keith Richards's recent $7-million + memoir deal with Little, Brown. I'm not going to suggest that you need to summon any sympathy for this devil...

Indigo's sales up in Q1.(Indigo Books & Music Inc., 1st Quarter)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Canadian retailer Indigo Books & Music Inc. reported a first-quarter net loss of C$2.8 million ($2.7 million), down from a loss of C$5.8 million in the same quarter in 2006. Revenue growth was reported at 8.5%, to C$184.9 million ($175.7...

RD sees Int'l restructuring.(Reader's digest, international)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Reader's Digest has reconfigured its international operations in an attempt to, according to a company spokesperson, make the reporting process to its Pleasantville, N.Y., headquarters more centralized. In the shuffle, Thomas Gardner, who had...

Online sales lift publishers.(Half-Way Poi)(Penguin Books USA Inc., Simon & SchusterInc., Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd.)(Table)
August 6, 2007... With bookstore sales down in the first part of 2007, sales through online retailers have helped publishers increase sales in the first six months of the year. Penguin USA said that sales through online stores rose 23% in the first six months of...

Dave Hathaway, book buyer, Barnes & Noble, New York City.(GALLEY TALK)(Dream Manager)(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Michael Kelly's Dream Manager [Hyperion, Aug. 24] is an enlightening business parable about a company struggling with such real problems as high turnover and low morale. The managers of the fictional company discover that not everyone is...

Wilson, S&S lose CIA suit.(Valerie Plame Wilson, Simon & Schuster. Central Intelligence Agency)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Federal judge Barbara Jones has ruled against Valerie Plame Wilson and Simon & Schuster in a lawsuit the two filed to prohibit the CIA from interfering in the publication of Wilson's upcoming memoir, Fair Game. In their suit, Wilson and S&S...

Audible sales up.(Audible Inc.)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Revenue at Audible rose 36% in the second quarter, to $25.9 million, and the company's net loss was trimmed to $125,000 from a loss of $2.2 million in last year's comparable period. An increase in the number of AudibleListener members--to...

Two preempts for Kneerim.(Deals)(Jill Kneerim, offered to publish two works)
August 6, 2007... Jill Kneerim at Kneerim & Williams has accepted a preemptive offer for The Worm at the Core by social psychologists Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski; Random's Wall Murphy bought North American rights. The trio, originators of...

Auction to Harper.(Deals)(Harper and Collins Books of Canada Ltd.)
August 6, 2007... Gail Winston at Harper won an auction for a memoir by bird rehabilitator Suzie Gilbert titled Flyaway, Inc. ; Russell Galen at Scovil Chichak Galen made the six-figure North American sale. Gilbert will blend the amusing and sometimes tragic...

Three more from Hoag.(Deals)(Tami Hoag)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag has signed a deal with Bantam, her publisher of the past 20 years, for three new suspense novels; Andrea Cirillo at the Jane Rotrosen Agency made the North American rights deal with Nita Taublib and...

Haber's first.(Deals)(Leigh Haber)
August 6, 2007... Leigh Haber has made her first acquisition for her new imprint at Rodale, Modern Times, and it's Jane Heller's It's Not Over. I Still Love You: A Spoiled Yankee Fan Searches for Redemption. Trident's Ellen Levine sold North American rights....

Thor novels optioned.(Deals)(film rights to Brad Thor's Scot Harvath books)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Brad Thor, whose latest Scot Harvath novel, The First Commandment, just debuted at #7 on yesterday's T/rues bestseller list, has optioned film rights to the Harvath books to Steven Paul at Crystal Sky Pictures. Heide Lange at Sanford...

Eminent domain.(Deals)(Jeff Benedict's Little Pink House world rights)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Rick Wolff at Grand Central has acquired world rights to Jeff Benedict's Little Pink House via agent Basil Kane. Benedict will tell the story of Susette Kelo, who rallied her New London, Conn., neighbors to fight against a governor and a...

Edmunds rises at workman.(Page Edmunds of Workman Publishing Co.)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Page Edmunds has been named associate publisher at Workman, after Katie Workman stepped down in the fall to pursue opportunities outside of publishing. Edmunds has been with the company since 2000.

More Potter.(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows second printing)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... A second printing of two million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has brought the total in-print figure to 14 million. Scholastic reported that in its first 10 days on sale, Hallows sold 11.5 million copies. Nielsen BookScan,...

Turning bad books into big bucks.(Lulu.com Inc.)
August 6, 2007... We publish a huge number of really bad books," admitted Bob Young, the Canadian entrepreneur who founded the digital book publisher Lulu.com in 2002. But that's in keeping with Young's original vision for Lulu, which he sees as democratizing...

Calendar: Aug. 13-18.(Foreword)(Calendar)
August 6, 2007... 8/13 Judith Martin turns 69. PW said her latest, No Vulgar Hotel, was "perfect for a swift, semi-intellectual overview of Venice that goes several steps deeper than the average tourist guide." 8/14 PW called Sandra Brown's newest...

New Corey line ready to debut.(Novel(ty) Approach)(Robin Corey's books)
August 6, 2007... This fall, Random House will launch a brand-new imprint, and the woman at its helm is no stranger to the world of novelty books. Robin Corey landed at Random House in February 2006; she had most recently been executive v-p and publisher of...

Booksellers grow publishing efforts.(Making Book in Troy)(Troy Book Makers owners Eric Wilska and Susan Novotny)
August 6, 2007... One year and 70 books later, the Troy Book Makers in Troy, N.Y., a small-scale Print-on-Demand venture started last summer by Eric Wilska, owner of the Bookloft in Great Barrington, Mass., and Susan Novotny, owner of the Book House of...

Cothran to BBC Audio.(People)(Traci Cothran to BBC Audiobooks America)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Traci Cothran has been hired as sales manager for BBC Audiobooks America. She arrives from Audio Book Club, a division of the recently closed MediaBay, where she was v-p of editorial and marketing.

Huerta to Phaidon Press.(People)(Sharon Huerta appointed as the sales manager)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Sharon Huerta has been named North American sales manager at Phaidon Press. Huerta was most recently director of field and international sales at Harry N. Abrams.

Gebhard up at Hyperion.(People)(Beth Gebhard of Walt Disney Co. Hyperion Press)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Beth Gebhard has been promoted from publicity director to executive director of publicity at Hyperion. In her new position, she will oversee the house's entire publicity department.

Sharkey looks to leverage tv past at HarperCollins.(The Roving Editor)(Lisa Sharkey job of licensing books influenced by current events at HarperCollins Publishers Inc.)
August 6, 2007... After 2-7 years in network television, Lisa Sharkey, HarperCollins's new editorial executive, said she's very much at home in the publishing game. A self-described book person, Sharkey--a former producer at Good Morning America and, later, head...

Industry stocks: July performances.(Market Watch)(book industry)(Table)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... A volatile stock market, which after several wild swings at the end of the month finished July down 1.5%, contributed to a 5.2% drop in the PWSL Stock prices at 13 companies fell in July, while prices at only four companies rose. Amazon was...

Montana to OUP.(People)(Cindy Montana of Oxford University Press)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Cindy Montana has joined Oxford University Press as advertising manager. She arrives from Springer Publishing, where she was also advertising manager.

Oliviery, Tarson to Rodale.(People)(Blanca Oliviery and Beth Trason join Rodale Inc.)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Blanca Oliviery and Beth Trason have joined Rodale as senior publicists. Oliviery was most recently a publicist at Avalon Publishing Group and Tarson arrives from McGraw-Hill, where she was a publicist. Also, Nadea Mina has been promoted to...

Hardcover bestsellers/fiction.
August 6, 2007... "Fans of satiric literary humor are in for a treat," noted PW in our review of Fforde's fifth book. And fans certainly showed up for his book signings, from 100 at Borders in Boston's Back Bay to 300 at D.C.'s Politics & Prose. At New York...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.
August 6, 2007... The Dangerous Book for Boys inspired an August 6 Time cover story featuring nine pages of discussion on the current plight of boys. Its conclusion: "Boys are better off, socially and academically, than ever." The article went on to note that...

Paperback bestsellers/mass market.
August 6, 2007... From PW's review of Ricochet: "A sultry noir in contemporary clothes, this tight new thriller from Brown plays like measured chaos. The plot is twisting, the characters are well shaded, and Brown manipulates each string with a skilled hand...."...

Paperback bestsellers/trade.
August 6, 2007... In the August 6 print edition of the New York Observer, Walls talks about her eight-year gig at MSNBC.com writing "The Scoop," the site's popular gossip column; her final posting, on July 26, was about Lindsay Lohan. Walls is still traveling to...

Comics bestsellers.
August 6, 2007... Viz promoted its wildly popular Naruto franchise (#1 and #5) during the recent San Diego Comic-con by showing demos of Naruto-inspired video-games for the Playstation 2 (Uzumaki Chronicles) and for the Xbox 360 (Rise of a Ninja). Fans also got...

New Mexico.(United States of Bookselling)(bookstores in a small state)
August 6, 2007... "New Mexico may seem like one of those states lost in time," said Kay Marcotte, sales rep for the University of New Mexico Press and former director of marketing for Barnes & Noble in New York, "but there are a lot of freethinkers here, a lot...

Southern Union: Virginia and Georgia unite for poetry series.(Independent Publishing)(University of Virginia and University of Georgia joins together for the release of a poetry book )
August 6, 2007... One of America's most respected literary magazines--Virginia Quarterly Review out of the University of Virginia--is teaming up with the University of Georgia Press, longtime publisher of the now-retired Contemporary Poetry Series to bring out a...

Publishing's world leaders.(World Class)(world's 45 largest book publishers)(List)
August 6, 2007... With headquarters in 14 countries and operations that span the globe, the world's 45 largest book publishers generated revenue of approximately $73 billion in 2006, according to a new ranking commissioned by PW and other trade magazines in...

Getting past the gatekeepers: a debut novel proves its winning ways.(First Fiction)(Touchstone Fireside and Gather.com picks Terry Shaw's The Way Life Should Be)
August 6, 2007... It seems like ages since a group of editorial assistants sat around a conference table eating pizza and going through the slush pile in search of the Holy Grail, a publishable first novel--actually, it was six years ago, when the anthrax scare...

Beaufort.(Fall '07 Fiction Debuts)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Beaufort Run Leshem, 32 (Delacorte, Jan.) Born: Tel Aviv, Israel; now lives on the outskirts. Favorite authors: Garcia Marquez, Paul Auster, Shmuel Agnon, Romain Gary, Elsa Morante, Zeruya Shalev, Naguib Mahfouz, David Grossman. ...

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.(Fall '07 Fiction Debuts)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz, 38 (Riverhead Books, Sept.) Born: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; now lives in New York City and Boston. Favorite authors: Samuel R. Delany, Patrick Chamoiseau, Toni Morrison, Natsuo...

The Farther Shore.(Fall '07 Fiction Debuts)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... The Farther Shore Matthew Eck, 33 (Milkweed Editions, Oct.) Born: Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota; now lives in Kansas City, Mo. Favorite authors: Hemingway, Tim O'Brien, Kurt Vonnegut. Also the classics--Homer, Shakespeare,...

The Eye of Jade.(First Fiction)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... The Eye of Jade Diane Wei Liang, 41 (Simon & Schuster, Feb.) Born: Beijing; now lives in London. Favorite authors: E Scott Fitzgerald ("my absolute favorite"), Annie Proulx, Edith Wharton, E.M. Forster, Haruki Murakami. Career...

A Fraction of the Whole.(First Fiction)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... A Fraction of the Whole Steve Toltz, 35 (Spiegel & Grau, Feb.) Born: Sydney, Australia; now lives in New York City. Favorite authors: Knut Hamsun, Dostoyevsky, Thomas Bernhard, Raymond Chandler. Career arc: From the bottom rung of...

A Golden Age.(First Fiction)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... A Golden Age Tahmima Anam, 31 (HarperCollins, Jan.). Born: Dhaka, Bangladesh; now lives in London. Favorite authors: William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Leo Tolstoy. Career arc: Anthropologist to film production assistant to writer....

Interred with Their Bones.(First Fiction)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Interred with Their Bones Jennifer Lee Carrell, 45 (DuRon, Sept.) Born: Washington, D.C.; now lives in Tucson, Ariz. Favorite authors: Shakespeare ("of course"), Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Dinesen, Allende, Perez-Reverte. Career...

Maynard and Jennica.(First Fiction)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Maynard & Jennica Rudolph Delson, 32 (Houghton Mifflin, Sept.) Born: San Jose, Calif.; now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Favorite authors: Stephen King, Joan Didion, Philip Roth, Woody Alien Career arc: From adolescent horror fan to...

The Way Life Should Be.(First Fiction)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... The Way Life Should Be Terry Shaw, 44 (Touchstone, Sept.) Born: Clearfield, Pa.; now lives in Knoxville, Tenn. Favorite authors: James Lee Burke, Elmore Leonard, Tim O'Brien, Harper Lee, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac. Career...

Forward into fall.(Bibliography)
August 6, 2007... As our fall preview goes to press, it's hot; and the temper of the autumn offerings is no cooler. With the conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere blazing away, new titles are examining wartime issues from a variety of approaches. An October title from...

Fall 2007 trade paperbacks.(bibliography)(Bibliography)
August 6, 2007... ART & ARCHITECTURE ACTAR Verb Crisis (Jan., $42), edited by Mario Ballesteros et al., tackles the conflict between an architectural commission and the demands of an overcrowded world. ALLWORTH PRESS How to Think Like a Great...

The Pure Land.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Pure Land ALAN SPENCE. Canongate, $24 (432p) ISBN 978-1-84195-882-8 Scottish writer Spence (Stone Garden) fictionalizes the life of Thomas Glover, a 19th-century Scots entrepreneur who built a mercantile empire in Japan, and whose life...

The Golden Tulip.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Golden Tulip ROSALIND LAKER. Three Rivers Press, $14.95 paper (576p) ISBN 978-0-307-35257-6 Love, tulips, painting, Dutch patriotism and the dynamics of personal and political power inform Laker's sprawling saga, set in Holland during...

Father Michael's Lottery.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Father Michael's Lottery JOHAN STEYN. Schaffner (IPG, dist.), $25 (440p) ISBN 978-0-971-05987-0 Steyn's fine South African import debut deals with the ravages of the "big disease" and bottom-line-oriented health care in southern Africa....

World without End.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... World Without End KEN FOLLETT. Dutton, $35 (992p) ISBN 978-0-525-95007-3 Eighteen years after Pillars of the Earth weighed in with almost 1,000 pages of juicy historical fiction about the construction of a 12th-century cathedral in...

Blonde Faith.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... * Blonde Faith WALTER MOSLEY. Little, Brown, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-316-73459-2 Set in 1967, Mosley's brilliant 10th Easy Rawlins thriller finds the middle-aged Easy still fighting some of the same battles he fought in his first outing,...

Snapshots.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Snapshots MICHAL GOVRIN, TRANS. FROM THE HEBREW BY BARBARA HARSHAV. Riverhead, $25.95 (336p)ISBN 978-1-59448-959-4 Israeli novelist Govrin (The Name) juxtaposes one women's difficult search for personal and professional fulfillment against...

The Sound of Butterflies.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Sound of Butterflies RACHAEL KING. Morrow, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-135764-0 In this rich debut from New Zealander King, amateur naturalist Thomas Edgar leaves his young wife, Sophie, behind, and sets off from...

The Air We Breathe.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Air We Breathe ANDREA BARRETT. Norton, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-393-06108-6 Picking up connected characters from her 1996 National Book Award-winning story collection Ship Fever, the latest from Barrett follows her Pulitzer Prize...

Smart Girls Like Me.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... * Smart Girls Like Me DIANE VADINO. St. Martin's/Dunne, $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-312-37475-4 Blogger Vadino (bunnyshop.org) does a good job in her first novel of capturing the inner life of a chronic worrier as she navigates late '90s New...

Shoot Him if He Runs.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Shoot Him if He Runs STUART WOODS. Putnam, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15444-7 Stone Barrington and Holly Barker, Woods's longtime investigative and romantic duo, search for a rogue CIA agent on a beautiful tropical island in this...

PW talks with Ken Follett: an epic historical.(Q&A)(Interview)(Brief article)
August 6, 2007... Best known for his novels of suspense, Ken Follett returns to medieval England in World Without End (see review, p. 164), a sequel of sorts to 1989's Pillars of the Earth, his most successful book. Does Pillars of the Earth have any...

Humpty Dumpty in Oakland.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Humpty Dumpty in Oakland PHILIP K. DICK. Tot, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1690-5 Vans of late SF icon Dick (1928-1982) who have yet to discover his obscure nongenre works will be pleasantly surprised by this profound--and...

Now Voyagers: Some Divisions of the Saga of Mawrdew Czgowchwz, Oltrano. Authenticated by Persons Represented Therein. Book One: The Night Sea Journey.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Now Voyagers: Some Divisions of the Saga of Mawrdew Czgowchwz, Oltrano. Authenticated by Persons Represented Therein. Book One: The Night Sea Journey JAMES McCOURT. Turtle Point, $17.95 paper (536p) ISBN 978-1-933527-08-6 Mawrdew Czgowchwz...

The Farther Shore.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Farther Shore MATTHEW ECK. Milkweed, $22 (192p) ISBN 978-1-57131-057-6 A unit of young American soldiers lost in an unnamed city in an unnamed desert nation struggle to maintain a tenuous grip on their lives in this haunting debut...

The Pirate's Daughter.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Pirate's Daughter MARGARET CEZAIR-THOMPSON. Unbridled, $24.95 (432p) ISBN 078-1-932961-40-9 Cezair-Thompson conjures the tragic glamour of golden age Hollywood against the backdrop of lusty, turbulent Jamaica in her dual generational...

Down River.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... * Down River JOHN HART. St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 9-/8-0-31235931-7 Hart surpasses his bestselling debut, The King of Lies (2006), with his richly atmospheric second novel, which offers a tighter plot, more adroit...

Last Known Victim.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Last Known Victim ERICA SPINDLER. Mira, $24.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2461-4 Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters failed to wash away evil in bestseller Spindler's grim vision of New Orleans. In the storm's aftermath, police discover a...

Midnight Rambler.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Midnight Rambler JAMES SWAIN. Ballantine, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-345-47546-6 Swain, author of the gambling crime series starring Tony Valentine (Grift Sense, etc.), avoids many of the cliches of the antisocial ex-cop novel in this...

Noogie's Time to Shine.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Noogie's Time to Shine JIM KNIPFEL Virgin, $13.95 paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-75351-283-8 Memoirist Knipfel (Slackjaw and Ruining It for Everyone) here presents Ned "Noogie" Krapczak, a friendless, 35-year-old schlub who works as an ATM...

Cries in the Drizzle.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Cries in the Drizzle Yu HUA, TRANS. FROM THE CHINESE BY ALLAN H. BARR. Anchor, $13.95 paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-307-27999-6 In its first English translation, the debut novel by Yu Hua (author of the subsequent novels To Live and Chronicle of...

The Secret Cardinal.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Secret Cardinal TOM GRACE. Vanguard, $24.95 (356p) ISBN 978-1-59315-456-1 Grace's latest featuring series hero ex-navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny spins a complicated fugue around papal succession. After the tragic loss of his beloved wife and...

Calligraphy of the Witch.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Calligraphy of the Witch ALICIA GASPAR DE ALBA. St. Martin's, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-312-36641-4 A spirited indentured servant gets tangled up in the 17th-century Massachusetts Bay Colony witch hunts in this ambitious historical drama....

The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales ALEX ROSE. Akashic/Hotel St. George, $14.95 paper (160p) ISBN 978-0-9789103-1-0 Filmaker Rose ranges widely in his fiction debut, drawing in everything from non-Euclidian geometry to "dyasnimagnosis"...

The Unforeseen.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Unforeseen CHRISTIAN OSTER, TRANS. FROM THE FRENCH BY ADRIANA HUNTER. Other Press, $13.95 paper (264p) ISBN 978-1-59051-265-4 The latest from French novelist (A Cleaning Woman) uses the common cold as a deceptively offhand metaphor for...

Try Dying.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Try Dying JAMES SCOTT BELL. Hachette/Center Street, $21.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-59995-684-8 Former trial lawyer Bell (No Legal Grounds) starts this engaging whodunit series kickoff by plunging successful young L.A. attorney Ty Buchanan into...

Custer's Brother's Horse.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Custer's Brother's Horse EDWIN SHRAKE. Hardy (www.johnmhardy.com), $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-9717667-8-5 It's 1865, the Civil War is just over, but some folks in Texas still settle Yank-Reb scores with bullets and nooses. Shrake's 10th...

Wicked Ways.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Wicked Ways DONNA HILL. St. Martin's, $21.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-312-35422-0 Hill's tightly written, satisfying sequel to 2006's Getting Hers finds high-class madam Tess McDonald, chic businesswoman Kimberly Shepherd-Benning and East Harlem...

Daisy Dooley Does Divorce.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Daisy Dooley Does Divorce ANNA PASTERNAK. Grand Central/ 5 Spot, $13.99 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-446-17794-8 The title is a hint of what to expect in this frustrating traipse through divorcedom from the great niece of that guy who wrote Dr....

A Matter of Honor.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... A Matter of Honor WILLIAM C. HAMMOND III. Cumberland, $26.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1-58182-609-8 Literary agent, amateur historian and sailing enthusiast Hammond sets his sprawling debut novel, the first in a series, in the crucible of the...

Mozart's Sister.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Mozart's Sister RITA CHARBONNIER, TRANS. FROM THE ITALIAN BY ANN GOLDSTEIN. Crown, $23.95 (304p)ISBN 978-0-30734678-0 Maria Anna Mozart (1751-1829), nicknamed "Nannerl" by her brother Wolfgang Amadeus, was also known in her lifetime as a...

Dead Heat.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Dead Heat DICK FRANCIS AND FELIX FRANCIS. Putnam, $25.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-399-15476-8 MWA Grand Master Francis's first collaboration with his son Felix, a former physics teacher who researched many of his father's previous bestsellers,...

The Critic.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Critic PETER MAY. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (300p) ISBN 978-1-59058-458-3 Oenophiles and fans of CBS's Cold Case will relish May's slightly far-fetched second outing to feature France-based Scottish sleuth Enzo Macleod (after 2006's...

The Lace Reader.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... * The Lace Reader BRUNONIA BARRY. Flap Jacket (www. flapjacketpress.com), $14.95 paper (360p) ISBN 978-0-9791593-0-5 In Barry's captivating debut, Towner Whitney, a dazed young woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune...

The Tell-Tale Horse.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... The Tell-Tale Horse RITA MAE BROWN. Ballantine, $25.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-345-49024-7 Enlivened by a large cast of familiar two- and four-legged characters, "Sister" Jane Arnold's sixth adventure in Virginia hunt country (after 2006's The...

Kissing Christmas Goodbye: An Agatha Raisin Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 6, 2007... Kissing Christmas Goodbye: An Agatha Raisin Mystery M.C. BEATON. St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-312-34911-0 The indestructible Agatha Raisin, still at the top of her game in her darkly droll 17th whodunit (after Love, Lies...