Publishers Weekly articles from December 2007

Publishers Weekly archives from December 2007

American houses contend with rising Canadian dollar: some publishers opt for single price on Canadian books.(Foreword)
December 3, 2007... In L.A. they have road rage. In Toronto, it's book rage. That's the term the Globe and Mail gave to book customers in Canada, many of whom have, as the paper noted in a November 10 stow, gone so far as to "turn books into projectiles." ...

Harcourt sale okayed.(Reed Elsevier's Harcourt U.S. to HM Riverdeep)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... The Justice Department has given its approval to the sale of Reed Elsevier's Harcourt U.S. education business to HM Riverdeep, the corporate parent of Houghton Mifflin. The move clears the way for the $4-billion deal, which includes Harcourt's...

Egmont names law publisher.(Egmont Group names Elizabeth Law as v-p and publisher)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... The Egmont Group has appointed Elizabeth Law v-p and publisher of its new American children's publishing subsidiary, Egmont USA. Law, who officially starts January 2, most recently served as v-p and associate publisher of Simon & Schuster Books...

He's making a list ...(Foreword)
December 3, 2007... In case you haven't noticed, Americans love lists--especially at this time of year. Richest people lists, best gifts lists and, in the book world, of course, bestseller lists and year-end roundup lists. We at PW are no exception: as you'll see...

Former West head buys Phoenix.(Dwight Opperman buys Phoenix New Millennium)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Dwight Opperman, who turned West Publishing into a legal publishing powerhouse before selling it to Thomson Corp., has acquired all the publishing assets of Phoenix New Millennium, the book and audio publisher founded by Michael Viner. Viner...

Ditlow leaving RH audio.(Tim Ditlow bids goodbye to Random House Audio Group)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Tim Ditlow, who was appointed v-p, publisher-at-large for the Random House Audio Group in May, will leave the company January 1, at which point he will serve as an adviser. Ditlow was the longtime publisher of children's audiobook company...

Chain sales rise 5.6% to $2 billion.(A Good Quarter)
December 3, 2007... Total revenue from the nation's three major bookstore chains rose 5.6% in the third quarter ended October 31, reaching just under $2.1 billion. Similar to its larger competitors, Books-A-Million reported last week that gains were led by...

Toasting Evanovich.(Janet Evanovich)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Janet Evanovich celebrated signing a new four-book contract with St. Martin's Press by taking some of her colleagues at the publisher out for a spin on her boat, which she keeps at her home in Naples, Fla. Pictured...

Adobe, Yahoo in ad test.(Adobe Systems Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Adobe has teamed up with Yahoo to beta test a new program that will insert ads in PDF-based content. Called Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo, the aim of the project is to give publishers a new option to make money from digital content...

Wiley adds investment imprint.(John Wiley and Sons and Fisher Investments Press)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... John Wiley and Sons is launching a new imprint, Fisher Investments Press, which will draw on the expertise of the independent money management firm Fisher Investments and its founder and CEO, Ken Fisher. The first Fisher Investments Press title...

Glusman wins Black Hearts.(Deals)(John Glusman and the Black Hearts: One Platoon's Disintegration in the Triangle of Death and the American Failure in Iraq)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Harmony's John Glusman bested three other bidders in an auction for Time editor Jim Frederick's first book, Black Hearts: One Platoon's Disintegration in the Triangle of Death and the American Failure in Iraq; Elizabeth Sheinkman at Curtis...

Schieffer again to Putnam.(Deals)(Bob Schieffer and Neil Nyren)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Neil Nyren at Putnam bought world rights to a new book by chief Washington correspondent for CBS News Bob Schieffer via Esther Newberg at ICM. Currently untitled, the book will gather the best of Schieffer's commentaries from Face the Nation,...

Black back to S&S.(Deals)(Holly Black )(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Karen Wojtyla at S&S/Margaret K. McElderry Books has signed Ironside author Holly Black for two new novels via agent Barry Goldblatt, who sold North American rights. The first title, The White Cat, a teen novel based on a fairy tale by the same...

New deal for Rose.(Deals)(Karen Rose )(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Karen Kosztolnyik at Grand Central has bought two new suspense novels by Karen Rose, who had a recent mass market paperback bestseller, Die for Me. Grand Central will publish her first hardcover, Scream for Me, in May 2008, and tentative pub...

Meerkats for Touchstone.(Deals)(Meerkat Manor: Flower of the Kalahari)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Meghan Stevenson at Touchstone acquired U.S. rights to Tim Clutton-Brock's Meerkat Manor: Flower of the Kalahari via Emily Johnson and Susan Howe at Orion UK. Cambridge professor and scientist Clutton-Brock, who has researched meerkats for...

Memoir preempt.(Deals)(Amen, Amen by Abby Sher)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Samantha Martin at Scribner preempted world rights to Abby Sher's Amen, Amen via Molly Lyons at Joelle Delbourgo Associates. This is the story of Sher's life with obsessive-compulsive disorder, revealing how the author counts, and washes, cuts...

Corrections.(Correction notice)
December 3, 2007... In the article on Langenscheidt's distribution deal with German publisher Ullmann (Foreword, Nov. 19), Ullmann will translate the text into English, not Langenscheidt. In the story "Alloy Makes a Go of It In Hollywood" (Nov. 19), the teen...

An opening in Brooklyn.(Freebird Books)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Peter Miller (l.), Bloomsbury / Walker publicity director and newly minted owner of Freebird Books in Brooklyn, celebrated the reopening of his store on November 18. Joining him were Pierre Bayard, author of How to...

First edition book clubs gain fans.(Marketing)
December 3, 2007... To help launch new fiction titles, more publishers are aggressively working to get booksellers to feature their works in book clubs for signed first editions. These clubs, which typically offer one hardcover novel a month, many by first-time...

Calendar: Dec. 9-15.(Calendar)
December 3, 2007... 12/9 The TV movie Oprah Winfrey Presents Mitch Albom's For One More Day premieres tonight on ABC, starring Ellen Burstyn and Michael Imperioli. 12/11 Steve Berry's The Venetian Betrayal (Ballantine) offers secret cabals,...

Religion scholars meet together, maybe for the last time.(Splitting Up)(American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature )
December 3, 2007... The American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature held their joint annual meeting in San Diego, Calif., November 17-20, drawing more than 10,000 scholars. But beginning in 2008, the two organizations will hold separate...

Hamric joins Quayside.(People)(Kevin Hamric and Quayside Publishing Group)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Kevin Hamric has been named v-p of sales & marketing at Quayside Publishing Group. Hamric, who will be based out of the publisher's Minneapolis office, will report directly to president and CEO Ken Fund. He was most recently director of book...

Jones to Keen.(People)(Mike Jones and Keen Communications)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Mike Jones has been named director of special sales at Keen Communications, which owns Menasha Ridge Press (Birmingham, Ala.) and Clerisy Press (Berkeley, Calif.). He was most recently director of sales & marketing at Portland, Ore.'s Graphic...

Ken White, manager, San Francisco State Univ. Bookstore.(Galley Talk)(About My Life and the Kept Woman)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... There's something essentially naked about novelist John Rechy. I mean more than the cliche that he writes the "naked truth" about marginal people living outside polite society, a theme struck yet again in About My Life and the Kept Woman...

Shanks to Public Affairs.(People)(Tessa Shanks)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Tessa Shanks has been named senior publicist at Public Affairs, succeeding Jaime Leifer. Shanks arrives from Knopf, where she was a publicist. Leifer is moving to the New Yorker, where she will be public relations manager.

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.(Off the Air ... PW highlights an author who would have made a studio visit this week.)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible A.J. Jacobs. S&S, $25 (368p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9147-7 What would it require for a person to live all the commandments of the Bible for an...

Hardcover bestsellers/fiction.
December 3, 2007... "I write colloquially, so it's not fancy.... There's not a tremendous amount of detail, but I hope the detail that is in there is somewhat telling. Michael Connelly once told me that every chapter I write really powers the stories .. and turns...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Anna Quindlen's latest bestseller, Good Dog. Stay., is an expanded version of a column she wrote for Newsweek about her family pet Beau. Reader response was so "overwhelming" that she expanded Beau's story into her...

Paperback bestsellers/mass market.
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is the first time John Grisham's initial paperback publication has been a simultaneous mass and trade paperback release. Dell opted for this strategy after much discussion with retailers and distributors--many...

Paperback bestsellers/trade.
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's rare for the same book to appear simultaneously on both the mass market and trade paperback lists, and this week there's a new record--three titles on both charts. Oprah's selection of The Pillars of the Earth...

Comics bestsellers.
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] After six consecutive months on this list, Jeff Kinney's hybrid graphic/prose work, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, takes over the #1 slot. Abrams publicity director Jason Wells says the publisher plans five more books in the...

West Virginia.(United States of Bookselling)
December 3, 2007... Bookselling in West Virginia "hasn't evolved as quickly as in the rest of the ration," said Jessica Messinger, owner of Huntington's three-year-old Empire Books and News. West Virginia was the last of the 50 states to have a Barnes & Noble,...

'Twas the day after Christmas ...(Children's Books)(book release)
December 3, 2007... While traditional wisdom says it's the days leading up to Christmas that count most for publishers and booksellers, some children's book people think otherwise. The week after Christmas, according to Joan de Mayo, senior v-p, director of sales...

'The future of publishing?'.(Independent Publishing)(Dzanc Books)
December 3, 2007... They began, like many a small press, with a single title--in this case a collection of 19 stories by a little-known American living in China, Roy Kesey. The print run was small (2,500) and the house had no distributor and did its own...

Questions of identity.(Author Profile)(The Soul Thief)(Interview)
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "This isn't as warm and fuzzy as those earlier books," Charles Baxter comments, somewhat ruefully, about his latest novel, The Soul Thief(Pantheon, Feb.), as we eat lunch in a trendy Minneapolis restaurant above the...

Publisher of the Year: Perseus Books Group.(Cover story)
December 3, 2007... It may take a village to raise a child, but it's taken 630 employees scattered across the country to build the Perseus Books Group into what is arguably the most important independent publishing company in the nation, a feat that has made the...

Innovation, service, good books.(Jack Romanos, John Rubin and Sarah Crichton)(Above the Treeline )
December 3, 2007... The book publishing community is a dynamic entity--people enter, serve apprenticeships, make a mark; organizations rise to a necessary occasion; meanwhile, the culture and business landscape around them likewise evolves, deepening the...

The book reigns in Northern California: authors, festivals, publishers, magazines and writing programs make for a lively literary culture.(Regional Focus: Northern California)
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Here's the truth: New York is no more "book country" than Sausalito is. What I mean is Manhattan and its fellow boroughs are in no way the end-all be-all for the creation, nurturing and dissemination of...

California dreaming: the spirit of living fully at Marc Allen's New World Library.(Regional Focus: Northern California)(Interview)
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The first time I spoke with Marc Allen, he told me he could help make me a millionaire. Six years later as I drive up a private road in Marin County just north of San Francisco toward Allen's stately home, I remember...

The beat goes on, and business, too: Lawrence Ferlinghetti is still rebelling as a bookman.(Regional Focus: Northern California)(Interview)
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Along Columbus Avenue in San Francisco, at the nexus of North Beach and Chinatown, a bronze plaque in front of a jazz/seafood joint called the Condor reads, "Where It All Began. The Birthplace of the World's First...

Northern California: a publisher for every taste.(Regional Focus: Northern California)(Company overview)
December 3, 2007... Northern California's publishing scene features a mix of small presses, independent houses and subsidiaries of New York publishers--in one of the year's biggest deals, Berkeley's Avalon became part of Perseus (see p. 23). The combination makes...

The House at Riverton.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... * The House at Riverton KaTE MORTON. Atria, $24.95 (480p) ISBN 978-1-4165-5051-8 This debut page-turner from Australian Morton recounts the crumbling of a prominent British family as seen through the eyes of one of its servants. At 14,...

Nice to Come Home To.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Nice to Come Home To REBECCA FLOWERS. Riverhead, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-1-59448-961-7 Though she's methodically navigated 36 years by making lists and plans, D.C. resident Prudence Whistler's carefully constructed life is about to get...

All the Sad Young Literary Men.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... All the Sad Young Literary Men KEITH GESSEN. Viking, $24.95 (242p) ISBN 978-0-670-01855-0 In n+ 1 founding editor Gessen's first novel, three college graduates grapple with 20th-century history at the dawn of the 21st century while...

Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] * Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories TOBIAS WOLFF. Knopf, $26.95 (400p) ISBN 978-1-4000-4459-7 Wolff's first story collection, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981), was a major salvo in the...

The Blue Star.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... The Blue Star TONY EARLEY. Little, Brown, $23.99 (304p) ISBR 978-0-316-19907-0 The small dramas of teenage love get caught in the crosswinds of a war in this sequel to the 2001 bestseller Jim the Boy. It's late summer 1941, and Jim Glass,...

Map of Ireland.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Map of Ireland STEPHANIE GRANT. Scribner, $22 (208p) ISBN 978-1-4165-5622-0 Edgy and erotic, Grant's second novel (after The Passion of Alice) runs a complex story of urban racial conflict through a YA-feeling filter. The year is 1974, and...

Criminal Paradise.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Criminal Paradise STEVEN M. THOMAS. Ballantine, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-345-49781-9 This California noir, Thomas's first novel, fails to deliver on its promising opening. When smalltime crook Robert Rivers and his partner, Switch, rob the...

Tarnished Beauty.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Tarnished Beauty CECILIA SAMARTIN. Atria, $23.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4165-4950-5 Two travelers from different corners of the world discover that they have more in common than meets the eye in Samartin's smart second novel (after Broken...

Jackalope Dreams.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Jackalope Dreams MARY CLEARMAN BLEW. Univ. of Nebraska, $24.95 (404p) ISBN 978-0-8032-1588-7 In Blew's commendable fiction debut, Corey Henry is fired from her Montana middle school teaching job after striking a taunting student,...

Return of the Stardust Cowgirl.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Return of the Stardust Cowgirl MARSHA MOYER. Three Rivers, $13.95 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-307-35155-5 The fourth installment in Moyer's marvelous Lucy Hatch series (after Heartbreak Town) is as refreshing as an icy cold Coke on a hot...

Stranger in Paradise.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Stranger in Paradise ROBERT B. PARKER. Putnam, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15460-7 Jesse Stone trades quips with his deputies, Suitcase Simpson and Molly Crane; struggles with his relationship with his ex-wife, Jenn; and grapples with a...

PW talks with Christa Faust: smoking in the boys' room.(Q&A)(Interview)
December 3, 2007... Self-described "pulp writer" Christa Faust, who recently won an award for her novelization of the 2006 film Snakes on a Plane, celebrates another coup with the January release of Money Shot: the first female writer in Dorchester's neo-noir Hard...

Lady Killer.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Lady Killer LISA SCOTTOLINE. Harper, $25.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-083320-6 Philadelphia attorney Mary DiNunzio, last seen in Killer Smile (2004), agrees to help her high school nemesis, Trish Gambone, at the start of this less than...

Atomic Lobster.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Atomic Lobster TIM DORSEY. Morrow, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-082969-8 Dorsey's 10th novel to feature Serge A. Storms and Coleman (after 2007's Hurricane Punch) offers sex, violence, more violence and Three Stooges--like action. After...

Slip of the Knife.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... * Slip of the Knife DENISE MINA. Little, Brown, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-316-01558-5 Set in 1990, Mina's superb third thriller to feature Paddy Meehan (after 2006's Edgar-finalist The Dead Hour) finds the Glaswegian journalist embroiled in...

Deep Dish.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Deep Dish MARY KAY ANDREWS. Harper, $24.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-06-083736-5 Andrews (Savannah Breeze; Hissy Fit) delivers a trademark romance set in her native Deep South. Gina Foxton is a 30-year-old chef with a health-conscious approach to...

The Have-Nots.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... The Have-Nots KATHARINA HACKER, TRANS. FROM THE GERMAN BY HELEN ATKINS. Europa (Consortium, dist.), $14.95 paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-933372-41-9 Hacker (Morpheus; The Lifeguard) entwines the lives of three unusual households in post-9/11...

Spy Game.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Spy Game SUE SWIFT. Five Star, $25.95 (277p) ISBN 978-1-59414-658-9 Cyber geek meets seductive spy girl in this feverish Silicon Valley thriller from Swift (Triangle). Half-French, half-Algerian Ani Sharif, whose parents were murdered by...

Gambit.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Gambit KARNA SMALL BODMAN. Forge, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1928-9 Bodman, a former Reagan deputy press secretary and NSC senior director, makes little use of her inside knowledge of Washington, D.C., in her second near-future...

Charm!.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Charm! KENDALL HART. Hyperion, $21.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4013-0307-5 A conniving character given to getting into steamy situations on the daytime soap All My Children, the fictional Kendall Hart is here given a novelist's voice, and the...

The Last Beach Bungalow.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... The Last Beach Bungalow JENNIE NASH. Berkley, $14 paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-425-21927-0 In Nash's winning debut, a long illness and mastectomy have put April Newton's life on hold for five years, and have made her and husband Rick...

Silver: My Own Tale as Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... * Silver: My Own Tale as Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder EDWARD CHUPACK. St. Martin's/ Dunne, $23.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-31237365-8 At the start of Chupack's swashbuckling debut, Long John Silver, yes, that Long John Silver,...

1999: A Novel of the Celtic Tiger and the Search for Peace.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... 1999: A Novel of the Celtic Tiger and the Search for Peace MORGAN LLYWELYN. Forge, $24.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-312-87849-8 In Llywelyn's fifth and final installment in the Irish Century series, she offers a fastidious take on "The Troubles,"...

The Wedding Machine.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... The Wedding Machine BETH WEBB HART. Thomas Nelson, $14.99 paper (320p) ISSN 078-1-59554199-4 In this engrossing novel with weddings as the centerpiece, Hart (Adelaide Piper; Grace at Low Tide) explores the relationships between women,...

Mozart's Ghost.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Mozart's Ghost JULIA CAMERON. St. Martin's/Dunne, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-36911-8 Cameron, the author of more than 25 books and probably best-known for The Artist's Way, brings her fans a twist on a stereotypical romance that strikes...

Train to Yesterday.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Train to Yesterday NELL DUVALL. Five Star, $25.95 (291p) ISBN 978-1-59414-663-3 In the tepid, back-to-the-future romance debut from DuVall, Penny Barton is a railroad heiress slumming as a marketing director for HyperTrans, an Ohio company...

Voyage to Oblivion.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Voyage to Oblivion THEODORE ROOSEVELT GARDNER II. Allen A. Knoll, $27.50 (620p) ISBN 978-1-888310-10-8 A clutch of elderly travelers spend a round-the-world cruise kibbitzing, flirting and coping with death in Gardner's good-intentioned if...

Sway.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... * Sway ZACHARY LAZAR. Little, Brown, $23.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-316-11309-0 As Mick Jagger sang in the 1970 song "Sway," "It's just that demon life has got me in its sway." In Lazar's second novel, he uses a number of real "demon lives" from the...

The Ravine.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... The Ravine NIVARIA TEJERA, TRANS FROM THE SPANISH BY CAROL MAIER. State Univ. of New York, $44.50 (165p) ISSN 9780-7914-7291-0; $14.95 paper ISBN 978-07914-7292-7 Written in the mid-1950s, this torturous tale from Cuban-born,...

Goodbye Sister Disco.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Goodbye Sister Disco JAMES PATRICK HUNT. St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0312-36156-3 Stock characters undermine an intriguing plot in Hunt's flat fifth novel, which features St. Louis police detective George Hastings,...

Special Assignments: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... * Special Assignments: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin BORIS AKUNIN. Random, $13.95 paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-8129-7860-5 In this thrilling collection of two novellas, Akunin (The Winter Queen) pits Erast Fandorin, his brilliant...

Desert Cut: A Lena Jones Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Desert Cut: A Lena Jones Mystery BETTY WEBB. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (290p) ISBN 978-1-89058-491-0 Scouting locations with her film director boyfriend on a sparkling mountain morning, Arizona cop-turned-PI Lena Jones stumbles across a...

Bound by Blood.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Bound by Blood RICK NELSON. St. Martin's Minotaur/ Dunne, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-31237264-4 Nelson's bland debut fails to capture the feel of its Big Easy setting (pre-Katrina, apparently), and its two story lines are loosely intertwined...

Final Curtain: A Polly Pepper Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Final Curtain: A Polly Pepper Mystery R.T. JORDAN. Kensington, $22 (288p) ISBN 978-0-7582-1282-5 Jordan's second Polly Pepper mystery (after 2007's Remains to Be Scene) delivers a fun romp through the underworld of regional theater. Polly,...

Of All Sad Words: A Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Of All Sad Words: A Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery BILL CRIDER. St. Martin's Minotaur/ Dunne, $23.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-31234810-6 Crider's winning 15th Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery (after 2007's Murder Among the OWLS) pits the wry Texan against a...

No Tears for the Lost.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... No Tears for the Lost ADRIAN MAGSON. Creme de la Crime (Dufour, dist.), $17.95 paper (291p) ISBN 978-0-9551589-7-1 This intelligent crime novel, the fourth in Magson's series to feature Riley Gavin and Frank Palmer (after No Sleep for the...

Cool in Tucson.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Cool in Tucson ELIZABETH GUNN. Severn, $27.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7278-6574-8 This promising first of a new series from Gunn (McCafferty's Nine and eight other Jake Hines police procedurals) introduces Sarah Burke, a newly minted Tucson,...

The Outlaw Demon Wails.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... The Outlaw Demon Wails KIM HARRISON. Eos, $24.95 (464p) ISBN 978-0-06-078870-4 Red-headed witch Rachel Morgan has a demon after her, but that's just one of her many troubles in this action-packed sixth installment of Harrison's Hollows...

Venus on the Half-Shell and Others.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... * Venus on the Half-Shell and Others PHILIP Jose FARMER. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $38 (328p) ISBN 978-1-59606-142-2 Farmer appends his own name at last to his stories written under pen names borrowed from other authors'...

Seekers of the Chalice.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Seekers of the Chalice BRIAN CULLEN. Tor, $25.95 (368p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1473-4 Cullen's freshman effort, the first in a fantasy trilogy loosely based on the ancient Irish epic Tain Bo Cuailnge, fails to do justice to its inspiration. When...

Tracing the Shadow: Book One of the Alchymist's Legacy.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Tracing the Shadow: Book One of the Alchymist's Legacy SARAH ASH. Bantam Spectra, $24 (432p) ISBN 978-0-553-80519-2 Despite a rocky start, Ash's new series, set in the world of her Tears of Artamon trilogy (Lord of Snow and Shadows, etc.),...

In a Time of Treason.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... In a Time of Treason DAVID KECK. Tor, $25.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1321-8 Equal parts historical fiction and epic medieval fantasy, the second volume of Keck's trilogy (after 2006's In the Eye of Heaven) finds heroic liegeman Durand Col...

Dark Hollow.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 3, 2007... Dark Hollow BRIAN KEENE. Dorchester/Leisure, $7.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-843958-61-4 After two miscarriages, writer Adam Senft's marriage is on the rocks, and his only satisfaction comes from his bond with his dog, Big Steve. One day, on a...