Publishers Weekly articles from December 2004

Publishers Weekly archives from December 2004

Knuffle bunny gets 5 starred reviews!(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... * "A seamless and supremely satisfying presentation of art and text."--School Library Journal, starred review * "This comic gem proves that Caldecott Medal-winner Willems, the Dr. Spock and Robin Williams of the lap-sit crowd, has just as...

Pigeon stages protest outside local bookstore.(News Flash)
December 6, 2004... Anytown, USA In what he described as "a protest of the unmitigated proliferation of Knuffle Bunnies across the United States," local celebrity The Pigeon wingcuffed himself to the front doors of Betty's Book Shop late Saturday morning,...

The year in books: a headline-making year for fiction and nonfiction.(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... FROM BILL CLINTON'S memoir to Philip Roth's latest novel, the books of 2004 created news. Inside this issue, readers will find PW's survey of the hottest trends and titles of the year. Among the offerings are our first-ever Book of the Year...

A little less gravy.(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Opening week of the 2004 holiday season was considerably lower in sales of hardcover fiction, a drop of 29.5% over the same time last year, and ahead by 8.5% over nonfiction hardcover. The nonfiction unit numbers are the highest they've been...

Lukewarm start to holiday sales.(News)(Thanksgiving )
December 6, 2004... SIGNALS FROM both booksellers and retailers in general have been mixed about sales in the first few days of the holiday shopping period. ShopperTrak, for example, estimated that sales on the Friday after Thanksgiving were up 10.8% from last...

Book sales up at hastings.(Third-Quarter Results)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Same-store sales of books rose 1.9% in the third quarter ended October 31, Hastings Entertainment reported. Total revenue at the retailer increased 6% in the period, to $119.6 million, and the pretax loss was cut to $2.8 million from $3.8...

Industry stocks: November performances.(Market Watch)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Market Watch Industry Stocks: November Performances Winners COMPANY OCTOBER 29 NOVEMBER 30 % CHANGE Marvel Enterprises 15.40 18.43 19.7% Amazon.com ...

Stellar year for Disney's children's group.(Results)
December 6, 2004... SALES IN DISNEY Publishing's U.S. children's book group jumped 35% for the year ended September 30, capping a five-year run in which revenue in the group rose a total of 47%. Lisa Holton, senior v-p and publisher for global children's books,...

Sales, earnings rebound at Wiley.(Second-Quarter Results)
December 6, 2004... FOLLOWING A SLUGGISH first quarter, sales and earnings at John Wiley & Sons rebounded in the second period, as all three of the company's core segments posted gains over the comparable quarter in fiscal 2004. For the period ended October 31,...

Looking again at China.(Opportunity?)
December 6, 2004... EVER SINCE CHINA began opening to the world more than a quarter-century ago, trade publishers, with visions of a huge consumer market, have come calling, talking about long-range partnerships and copublishing deals. But although rights to...

Tyndale, ZDL books in China deal.(No Market Left Behind)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... TYNDALE HOUSE, the publisher of the bestselling Left Behind series of Christian apocalyptic thrillers, has partnered with Belling-based ZDI, Books for distribution of the series and other titles to the Chinese market. A relative newcomer,...

Indies find opportunity in Buffett simulcasts.(Marketing)
December 6, 2004... LITTLE, BROWN HAS joined with Regal Cinemas, AEG-TV and Jimmy Buffett's HK Management team to promote the singer's fifth book, A Salty Piece of Land, with a national simulcast set for December 8, about one week after Salty's November 30 launch....

B&T makes third buy.(Acquisition)(Baker and Taylor Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... BAKER & TAYLOR continued its acquisition spree late last month with the purchase of Delta International Book Wholesalers. Based in Addlestone, England, Delta is an exporter of British books to retail, school, ELT and academic markets worldwide....

HM wins how doctors think.(Hot deals)(Houghton Mifflin Co.)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Houghton Mifflin editorial director Eamon Dolan made a sudden preemptive offer to end a frantic auction among 10 publishers for a new book by Dr. Jerome Groopman (author of the bestselling The Anatomy of Hope). The Harvard Medical School...

Gibbons signs with Harcourt.(Hot deals)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Kaye Gibbons, popular author of seven bestselling novels that between them have sold more than four million copies, is moving to Harcourt in a seven-figure deal just signed with executive editor Ann Patty at the house. One of the two books...

Crown buys Red Sox star's story.(Hot deals)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Long-haired center-fielder Johnny Damon was a star of the team, with his own vociferous following, even before he helped the Red Sox to their epochal World Series win in the fall. Now he has become the first team member to sign for a memoir,...

Media stars join for political book.(Hot deals)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... A pair of leading political journalists, Mark Halperin of ABC News and John Harris of the Washington Post, are combining forces to write a book examining the country's current political situation and the ways in which the media have helped to...

The many faces of addiction.(Hot deals)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... A keen auction for a book by widely published young journalist Benoit Denizen-Lewis was won for S&S by Bob Bender, who paid a "significant" six-figure advance for an untitled book about the nation's countless addicts, slaves to food, sex,...

Short takes.(Hot deals)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Bantam Dell's Irwyn Applebaum emerged the winner among the six publishers contending to take on bestselling thriller author Karin Slaughter when agent Victoria Sanders took her around. He paid in the high seven figures for North American rights...

Upcoming split dampens religion scholars' meeting.(Convention Coverage)(Society of Biblical Literature, American Academy of Religion)
December 6, 2004... THE AMERICAN ACADEMY Of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature held their joint annual meeting in San Antonio, Tex., November 20-23. The meeting drew 8,422 scholars--down from last year's 8,799, the largest ever--and 154 exhibitors, up...

Author blasts publisher over bad print job.(Author vs. Publisher)
December 6, 2004... THE EDITOR OF a badly misprinted forthcoming anthology of women cartoonists has publicly "disowned" the book, to protest the publisher's plans to release it despite what she describes as the book's poor print quality. The dispute is the result...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
December 6, 2004... In last week's News story about Alice Press, the company founder was misidentified, tie is Tristan DuBois.

Where's the gravy?(behind the bestsellers)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Our graphic on page 5 shows that sales in the first week of the 2004 holiday season (that's the week that ended November 28) were lower than in the previous year. Checking the numbers of the top five hardcover fiction and nonfiction titles at...

Night Falls high.(behind the bestsellers)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Nelson DeMille's latest bestseller, his lucky 13th, Night Fall, lands atop the fiction chart after just a week in the stores. Warner launched the book with a 776,000-copy printing and has already gone back for a 25,000-copy second printing,...

Twisted thriller triumphs.(behind the bestsellers)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Jonathan Kellerman's psychological thrillers have been a fixture on the national bestseller charts since his first title, When the Bough Breaks, was published in 1985. His latest, Twisted, lands on the charts in the #11 slot with 300,000 copies...

A Tony Tony.(behind the bestsellers)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... After 17 novels featuring Navajo Police detective Joe Leaphorn and Sgt. Jim Chee, Tony Hillerman continues to shine. His new bestseller, Skeleton Man, got excellent reviews, including a starred one in PW. HarperCollins reports 325,000 copies in...

Faithful red sox fans.(behind the bestsellers)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... On opening day of the baseball season, 04/04/04, two well-known writers and serious Red Sex fans, Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, began an intense e-mail exchange about their favorite team, which went on to do what seemed impossible--win the...

Osteen's million-copy hit.(behind the bestsellers)(Your Best Life Now)(America (The Book))(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... WarnerFaith is cheering its new bestseller, Your Best Life Now, as it hits the New York Times's Advice & How-To list in the #1 spot. On PWs December 6 list, the book climbs to the #2 spot with only Jon Stewart's America (The Book) blocking its...

Anniversary launches fund: women & children first celebrates 25 years with fund to support bookstore programs.(bookselling)
December 6, 2004... The accolades are pouring in from all sides for Ann Christophersen and Linda Bubon, co-owners of Chicago's Women & Children First Bookstore. They were named two of the Windy City's 10 most powerful women in the arts by the Chicago Sun-Times...

The year that was: a look back at audio highlights of 2004.(audio)
December 6, 2004... The year's end, marked by the blur of holiday shopping and celebrations, is th|e traditional time to take stock of the previous 12 months. PW recently spoke with a number of audiobook publishers and asked them to reflect on what distinguished...

Ender's Game.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... ENDER'S GAME ORSON SCOTT CARD, READ BY STEFAN RUDNICKI, HARIAN ELLISON AND CAST. Audio Renaissance, unabridged, nine CDs, 10.5 hrs., $39.95 ISBN 1-59397-4744 For the 20th anniversary of Card's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel, Audio...

The Godfather Returns.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... THE GODFATHER RETURNS MARK WINEGARDNER, READ BY JOE GRIFASI. Random House Audio, abridged, five CDs, 6 hrs., $26.95 ISBN 0-7393-1406-8 Even the most avid fan of Mario Puzo's seminal gangland saga and Francis Coppola's subsequent classic...

Quicksilver: Volume One of the Baroque Cycle.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... QUICKSILVER: Volume One of the Baroque Cycle NEAL STEPHENSON, READ BY SIMON PREBBLE AND STINA NIELSEN. Harper Audio, abridged, 20 CDs, 24 hrs., $75 ISBN 0-06-072161-8 * Adventure, romance, politics, history, theology, magic, science, money...

Hour Game.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... HOUR GAME DAVID BALDACCI, READ BY SCOTT BRICK. Time Warner Audiobooks, unabridged, eight cassettes, 14.5 hrs., $39.98 ISBN 1-58621-707-0 Stage and film actor Brick, an Audie Award-winning veteran of more than 150 audiobooks, is clearly a...

The Plot Against America.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA PHILIP ROTH, READ BY RON SILVER. Houghton Mifflin Audio, unabridged, 11 CDs, 13 hrs., $45 ISBN 0-618-50929-1 * Veteran actor Silver turns in a pitch-perfect rendering of Roth's novel about an America in which the...

Let Me Go.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... LET ME GO HELGA SCNEIDER, READ BY BARBARA ROSENBLAT. Blackstone Audiobooks, unabridged, four CDs, 4.5 hrs., $25.95 ISBN 0-7861-8578-3 In this scaring and provocative memoir, Schneider visits her mother in a retirement home in Vienna after a...

Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume I.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... BOB DYLAN CHRONICLES: Volume I BOB DYLAN, READ BY SEAN PENN. Simon & Schuster Audio, abridged, four cassettes, 6 hrs., $26 ISBN 0-7435-4308-4 For legions of die-hard fans and Dylanologists, there is but one voice. And hearing it spoken is...

A Christmas Story.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... A CHRISTMAS STORY Jean Shepherd, read by Dick Cavett. Random House Audio, unabridged, three CDs, 3 hrs., $16.95 ISBN 0-7393-1674-5 It's never easy to adapt a holiday classic, especially one that's best known now as a movie rather than as an...

The Stupidest Angel: a Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror.(Brief Article)(Audiobook Review)
December 6, 2004... THE STUPIDEST ANGEL: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror Christopher Moore, read by Tony Roberts. Harper Audio, unabridged, five CDs, 6 hrs., $29.95 ISBN 0-06-073874-X * This audiobook starts off innocently enough--with a few minutes...

Audio bestsellers: December 2004.
December 6, 2004... PUBLISHERS WEEKLY December 2004 Available online the Friday before issue date at: www.publishersweekly.com Audio Bestsellers Fiction [1] London Bridges (unabr. CD). James Patterson. Read by Peter J....

Mindful writing: Jon Kabat-Zinn asks us to come to our senses.(Innovators Series)(Interview)
December 6, 2004... OUR TAXI PULLS UP AT Jon Kabat-Zinn's yellow colonial in a picturesque New England town and he is outside, preparing to chop wood. This seems so exactly what we might expect from the founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of...

Picture books go graphic: graphic picture books gain steam, and a place on children's publishing lists.
December 6, 2004... "WHEN I WAS A KID in second grade, I read comics," says illustrator Jeff Weigel, "but these days the comic book audience skews much older than it used to. Guys my age who remember reading comics as kids are still reading them." Weigel, who...

The year in books 2004: from Bill's first to King's 'last,' books made news.(Bibliography)
December 6, 2004... THE BOOKS OF 2004 made headlines. Media paid close attention this election year as celebrity pundits from the Right and the Left sparred in book after book over politics and the Iraq War. One title by a master politician spurred expectations...

The Book of the Year: the Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): a citizen's guide to democracy inaction.
December 6, 2004... IN A YEAR DEFINED by political polemics, it seems fitting that PW's Book of the Year be one in which the authors survey the entire political system--and laugh. America (The Book) offers more than just humor, however, Beneath the eye-catching...

It's getting hot in here: moral values played in the polls, but in books, sex still sells.(Bibliography)
December 6, 2004... "READ BOOKS, Get Brain." The ad for a hip-hop clothing company that briefly adorned the sides of New York City buses--before the MTA learned that "brain," in this case, was slang for oral sex--seems a fitting metaphor for a year in which...

Overlooked books.(The Darkness That Comes Before: The Prince of Nothing Book One)(Bait and Switch)(Heaven Lake)(The Surrogate Thief)(Book Review)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... In the crowded marketplace, each year some excellent books pass largely unnoticed. Here are several titles that we think deserve more attention. FICTION The Darkness That Comes Before: The Prince of Nothing Book One R. Scott Bakker...

Spiritual self-help.(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... IHE MOST SUCCESSFULL subcategory in religion in 2004 has been "religion/self-help," led by one of the fastest-selling books of all time: Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life (Zondervan). Although it's been out for more than two years, sales...

Revenge of the blue states.
December 6, 2004... THE RASH OF anti-Bush polemics that marked the runup to the election has been well documented; more stealthy but just as vigorous, was what we might call the Foxification of publishing. The launch of Penguin's Sentinel books and the expansion...

Wartime fiction.(Brief Article)(Bibliography)
December 6, 2004... The three years of the war on terror have been scarcely enough for writers to begin to digest tectonic shifts in history, let alone reflect them in fiction and get them published. The number of fine, complex war novels issued in 2004 is all the...

Hot fictions debuts.
December 6, 2004... Among the many first works of fiction published in 2004, here are seven, ranging from mainstream to genre, that stood out. Hot Fiction Debuts Relative Danger This smashingly good mystery Charles Benoit ...

Manga bonanza.(Industry Overview)
December 6, 2004... HERE'S A POP QUIZ about why 2004 was a very good year for visual storytelling: What or who is Rurouni Kenshin? Ever heard of Fruits Basket? Who is Ken Akamatsu? What exactly is a Ghost in the Shell, and why should booksellers care? Time's...

Choice imports: some of the year's finest books came from continents near and far.(Bibliography)
December 6, 2004... FICTION Bethlehem Road Murder Batya, a Gur (HarperCollins) Israeli author Gur's outstanding police procedural, hrr fifth Michael Ohayon mystery, can hold its own with the best work of P.D. James. The Line of Beauty Alan...

Backstage pass.(Scar Tissue)(Tommyland)(Don't Try This at Home)(Book Review)(Brief Review)
December 6, 2004... Blame it on Marilyn Manson. Rockers let it all hang out this year with accounts of drug addiction, heartbreak, foursomes, epiphanies and A&R ledgers. Here's a rundown of some of the bestsellers. Chronicles, Volume I Bob Dylan (S&S) ...

Elliot Perlman: down under hero.(Interview)
December 6, 2004... In his native Australia, novelist Elliot Perlman is a literary star, a writer who gets recognized by his peers with awards and by readers on the street. But in New York, where he spends about half his time, trying to find one of his books is...

Disturbance.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... DISTURBANCE JAMIE O'NEILL. Scribner, $13 paper (224p) ISBN 0-7432-5596-8 Nilus, protagonist of this mordant psychological tale, finds his world falling down around his ears. After his mother dies, his sickly, eccentric father gets...

Missing Persons.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... MISSING PERSONS STEPHEN WHITE. Dutton, $25.95 (352p) ISBN 0-525-94859-7 Bestseller White's 13th Alan Gregory thriller gets off to a fast start with the psychologist's discovery of the corpse of his social worker colleague Hannah Green at...

Nice Big American Baby.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... NICE BIG AMERICAN BABY JUDY BUDNITZ. Knopf $23 (320p) ISBN0-375-41242-5 * Budnitz (Flying Leap; If I Told You Once) creates her own hybrid brand of stark, dystopian reality in this impressive collection, working an odd jumble of...

The Last Kingdom.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... THE LAST KINGDOM BERNARD CORNWELL. HarperCollins, $25.95 (352p) ISBN 0-06-053051-0 # Bestseller Cornwell leaps back a millennium from his Richard Sharpe series to tell of the consolidation of England in the late ninth century and the role...

Kafka on the Shore.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... KAFKA ON THE SHORE HARUKI MURAKAMI, TRANS. FROM THE JAPANESE BY PHILIP GABRIEL. Knopf, $25.95 (480p) ISBN 1-4000-4366-2 * Previous books such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood have established Murakami as a true original, a...

Grace.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... GRACE LINN ULLMANN, TRANS. FROM THE NORWEGIAN BY BARBARA HAVELAND. Knopf, $20 (128p) ISBN 1-4000-4285-2 This slim, grim novel--Ullmann's third--tells a chilly tale charged with the moral ambiguity surrounding euthanasia. Terminal illness...

The Weight of Nothing.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... THE WEIGHT OF NOTHING STEVEN GILLIS. Brook Street (www.brookstreetpress.com), $22 (272p) ISBN 0-9724295-5-7 Two men who've lost everything to violence and neglect struggle to redeem their lives in Gillis's uneven second novel (after Walter...

God Lives in St. Petersburg and Other Stories.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... GOD LIVES IN ST. PETERSBURG AND OTHER STORIES TOM BISSELL. Pantheon, $20 (224p) ISBN 0-375-42264-1 * In this sharp, hip collection of stories, Bissell fictionalizes his experiences in Central Asia, which were first aired in his nonfiction...

Mary After All.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... MARY AFTER ALL BILL GORDON. Dial, $23 (276p) ISBN 0-385-33642-X Mary' Nolan's life story is a classic: restless and unhappy in a Jersey City home where she was stifled by a diffident father and an invalid mother, she married too young (at...

Lady Luck's Map of Vegas.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... LADY LUCK'S MAP OF VEGAS BARBARA SAMUEL. Ballantine, $23.95 (304p) ISBN 0-345-46912-7 A mother and daughter lurch down memory lane via Route 66 in this affectionate but bumpy novel. Spunky, charming and recently widowed Eldora Redding, a...

The Full Cleveland.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... THE FULL CLEVELAND TERRY REED. Simon & Schuster, $22 (244p) ISBN 0-7432-6273-5 In Reed's debut, narrator Boyce Parkman comforts herself with Einstein's famous adage: "Pure logical thinking cannot yield, us any knowledge of the empirical...

Unexpected Blessings.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS BARBARA TAYLOR BRADFORD. St. Martin's, $24.95 (496p) ISBN 0-312-30704-7 # Emma Harte, the redoubtable heroine of veteran novelist Bradford's 1976 bestseller, A Woman of Substance, has been dead for 30 years, but she's...

The Ivy Chronicles.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... THE IVY CHRONICLES KAREN QUINN. Viking, $23.95 (342p) ISBN 0-670-03381-2 When 39-year-old Ivy Ames loses her corporate job, her big-shot husband, Cadman, cheats on her and she's too poor for her pampered Upper East Side lifestyle, she...

The Executioner's Game.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... THE EXECUTIONER'S GAME GARY HARDWICK. Morrow, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 0-06-057584-0 Hardwick, a veteran film and television producer, screenwriter and director who also writes books (Color of Justice), has a moderately interesting story to tell...

The Good Guys.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... THE GOOD GUYS BILL BONANNO AND JOE PISTONE WITH DAVID FISHER. Warner, $24.95 (352p)) ISBN 0-446-52965-6 Despite the impressive credentials of coauthors Bonanno, billed as "the former head of the Bonanno crime family," and Pistone (aka...

Hidden River.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... HIDDEN RIVER ADRIAN MCKINTY. Scribner, $24 (288p) ISBN 0-7432-4700-0 * Irish author McKinty follows up 2003's acclaimed Dead I May Well Be with an outstanding and complex crime novel that should appeal to fans of hard-boiled Celtic scribes...

Irish heroin addict in America.(PW Talks with Adrian McKinty)(Interview)
December 6, 2004... PW: Hidden River [see review above] is perhaps a more complex work than its predecessor, Dead I May Well Be. What inspired you to write the book? Adrian McKinty: Dead was much more of a genre novel than Hidden River. And although Hidden...

Alone.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... ALONE LISA GARDNER. Bantam, $24 (384p) ISBN 0557-80253-4 For 300-some pages, Gardner (The Perfect Husband) keeps readers spellbound--not just by her plot but by the beautifully realized character of Massachusetts police sniper Bobby Dodge....

I'll Be Watching You.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... I'LL BE WATCHING YOU ANDREA KANE. Morrow, $21.95 (352p) ISBN 0-06-074130-9 With red herrings this fishy, how come Kane's brainy heroic lovers don't figure out the psychopathic stalker's identity until almost too late? That's the real...

An Obituary For Major Reno.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... AN OBITUARY FOR MAJOR RENO RICHARD S. WHEELER. Forge, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 0-765-30708-1 Spur Award-winning western writer Wheeler (The Exile) once again takes a dramatic historical event and tells the story from an unusual and controversial...

Jimmy Olsen: Adventures by Jack Kirby, Vol. 2.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... JIMMY OLSEN: Adventures by Jack Kirby, Vol. 2 JACK KIRBY. DC Comics, $19.95 paper (192p) ISBN 1-4012-0259-4 * Kirby is generally considered the most influential artist in the history of comics, and these stories show him at his feverishly...

Marvel Age Mary Jane: Circle of Friends.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... MARVEL AGE MARY JANE: Circle of Friends SEAN MCKEEVER AND TAKESHI MIYAZAWA. Marvel, $5.99 paper (96p) ISBN 0-7851-1467-X Why should Peter Parker have all the fun? Now, Spiderman's true love, Mary Jane Watson, gets a comic all her own in...

Ray: Volume 1.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... RAY: Volume 1 AKIHITO YOSHITOMI. ADV Manga, $9.99 paper (208p) ISBN 1-4179-0204-9 This quirky new manga is part crime noir, part girly exploitation and part medical drama. Writer/artist Yoshitomi focuses on Ray, a 20-something woman who...

Ghost in the Shell.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... GHOST IN THE SHELL SHIROW MASAMUNE. Dark Horse, $24.95 (366/9) ISBN 1-59307-228-7 * First published in English in 1995, this classic cyberpunk manga is the story of a future society dependent on cyborgs (humans with machine parts). It's...

The Heartbreak Lounge.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... THE HEARTBREAK LOUNGE WALLACE STROBY. St. Martin's Minotaur, $22.95 (336p) ISBN 0-312-30095-6 Payback and revenge drive Stroby's taut, violent second outing for former New Jersey State Trooper Harry Rane (after 2003's The Barbed-Wire...

A Cold Treachery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... A COLD TREACHERY: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery CHARLES TODD. Bantam, $25 (384p) ISBN 0553-80?49-2 * Traditional mystery lovers who prefer their whodunits enriched with psychological insight will heartily embrace Todd's seventh...

The Dreaming Detective.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... THE DREAMING DETECTIVE H.R.F. KEATING. St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $23.95 (256p) ISBN 0312-32214-3 Det. Supt. Harriet Martens (aka the Hard Detective) has a controlling new boss ("Mr. Newbroom"), a new and very cold case and the deck...

Second Sight: a Brandy Coyne/J.W. Jackson Mystery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... SECOND SIGHT: A Brady Coyne/J.W. Jackson Mystery PIIILLIP R. CRAIG AND WILLIAM G. TAPPLY. Scribner, $24 (320p) ISBN 0-7432-6067-8 Boston lawyer Brady Coyne and retired cop J.W. Jackson uncover more mischief on the tourist-mecca island of...

Murder a La Mode: a Savannah Reid Mystery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 6, 2004... MURDER A LA MODE: A Savannah Reid Mystery G.A. McKEVETT. Kensington, $22 (272p) ISBN 0-7582-0460-4 An overly convoluted plot weighs down McKevett's 10th Savannah Reid mystery, but not sassy amateur sleuth Savannah, who retains her buoyant...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
December 6, 2004... Correction: Richard Curtis is the literary agent for Harlan Ellison's Children of the Street (Forecasts, Nov. 8).