Publishers Weekly articles from February 1999

Publishers Weekly archives from February 1999

HarperCollins to Acquire The Ecco Press.(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Literary house hopes to prosper at new parent company HARPERCOLLINS HAS REACH ED an agreement to acquire the Ecco Press for an undisclosed price. Based in Hopewell, N.J., Ecco is one of America's best-known literary houses; its authors...

Ingram Launches VOR Incentive Program.(users of Vendor of Record will get reward dollars)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... INGRAM BOOK CO. has launched a new incentive plan aimed at booksellers who use its Vendor of Record service. Under the program, booksellers who use VOR will receive "reward dollars" on their VOR purchases, which can then be used to buy a...

Amazon.com Dials Into Cell Phone Software Company.(Amazon.com Inc. buys 7% stake in GeoWorks Corp.)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... IN A NEW KIND of investment for Amazon.com, the company has bought a 7% stake in GeoWorks, a California company that makes software for cellular phones. GeoWorks president and CEO Dave Grannan says his company's aim is to "facilitate the...

Early Estimates Show '98 Sales Up by Nearly 8%.(book sales)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... PRELIMINARY ESTIMATES from the Association of American Publishers' monthly sales report show a 7.9% increase in industry sales in 1998 compared to 1997. Revenues were up in all but the mail order segment, with the biggest improvement...

RH, CTW Sign Wide-ranging Deal.(Random House Inc., Children's Television Workshop)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... THE CHILDREN'S TELEVISION Workshop; creator of Sesame Street, has signed a long-term agreement with-Random House that will expand the publishing relationship between the two companies While also providing for the development of CTW characters...

Freimuth Named Publisher, Times Books.(Peter Bernstein will take Carrie Freimuth's old position)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... CARRIE FREIMUTH, who for the past six years has been vice-president and associate publisher at Times Books, has been named publisher. She previously held positions with the subsidiary rights department at St. Martin's Press and the trade...

Willen Wins PEN/Klein Award.
February 22, 1999... HARCOURT BRACE senior editor Drenka Willen has won the 1998 PEN/Roger Klein Editorial Award, given to a trade book editor every two years for "distinguished editorial achievement." Willen began her career at Harcourt in 1962, translating...

Tower Renewing Book Commitment.(ad department to play major role)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... THE RESTRUCTURING OF Tower Records/Video/Books' book advertising department is one part of the company's strategy to reenergize its book operations, according to Sherri Wigger, advertising director of worldwide market development. PW...

Global Piracy Losses Estimated At $12 Billion.(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... LOSSES DUE TO COPYRIGHT piracy totaled $12.38 billion in 1998, up from $11.69 billion in the prior year, according to the International Intellectual Property Alliance's annual review of illegal copying of works produced by America's...

Odyssey Launches Travel Line in U.S.
February 22, 1999... THE HONG KONG--based travel book publisher Odyssey is celebrating its 20th anniversary by launching its own imprint in the U.S. Until this year, Odyssey had licensed its books to such U.S. houses as Rand McNally, Fodor's and St. Martin's. ...

UP AGAINST WALL ST.(Review)
February 22, 1999... Henry Holt's john Sterling has paid what is described as "substantial" money (we hear around half a million) for a new book by Bernard Lefkowitz, whose Our Guys, about a group of New Jersey high schoolers accused of raping a retarded teenage...

ON THE MAP.(Hardy Agency wins contract for Catherine Ryan Hyde)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... A small eight-year-old literary agency has helped put its author on the map with a big sale to a big house. Now a second sale for the same author, before the first book is even published, is helping put the agency on the map. The agents are...

OFF THE OLD BLOCK.
February 22, 1999... The name Dan Green, for many years a power at Simon & Schuster, remains one to be reckoned with, and now his son Simon, who works at his father's Pom agency, has just made one of his biggest sales to date: a low-six-figure sale to new S&S...

SHORT TAKES.(Miramax Films gets movie rights to "The War Journal of Major Damon 'Rocky' Cause")(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... After a prolonged seven-month negotiation, Miramax has optioned the movie rights to The War Journal of Major Damon "Rocky" Cause, the first-person account of Gause's escape from a Japanese POW camp and his later voyage with one companion...

Penguin Unites Kids Marketing Departments.(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... DOUG WHITEMAN, president and publisher of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, has merged the division's trade marketing and merchandise marketing departments into one unit. Audrey Cusson, formerly v-p, associate publisher for...

MCP Looking for Better Times in '99.(MacMillan Computer Publishing)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... NEWLY APPOINTED MACMILLAN Computer Publishing president Doug Bennett acknowledged that the long sale process of its parent company, Simon & Schuster, took a toll on the company in 1998. The uncertainty surrounding MCP intensified when the...

U.S. Houses, Sabre Donate $11.5M in Books Overseas.(Review)
February 22, 1999... GENEROUS DONATIONS from commercial, independent and university publishers enabled the nonprofit Sabre Foundation to distribute more than 360,000 books, valued at an estimated $11.5 million, to more than 15 countries last year. The top...

McNeal Wins First Michener Award.
February 22, 1999... TOM MCNEAL, whose first novel, Goodnight Nebraska, was published last year, is the first recipient of the $10,000 James A. Michener Memorial Prize. Ann Godoff, president and publisher of the Random House trade group, noted that the prize...

BLACK WEB BOOKSELLING.(Review)
February 22, 1999... "The book business on the Web is very lucrative," said a somewhat surprised Willie Richardson, president and founder of CushCity.com, an on line book retailer specializing in African-American titles Richardson told PW he's been overwhelmed by...

ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB.(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Time Warner Trade Publishing has launched Halala.com (Zulu for welcome), a Web site focusing on TWTP books by and about African-Americans. Greg Voynow, TWTP director of online marketing, told PW the site will promote titles from Back Bay,...

College Stores Go Online.(Barnes & Noble opens textbooks.com on-line bookstore)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... CONCERNED BY THE SPURT of online college stores, such as efollet.com and varsitybooks.com, a number of bricks-and-mortar booksellers have launched Web initiatives. Barnes & Noble College Stores have begun textbooks.com, which will sell...

CBA Expo Reflects Changes in Christian Book Market.(Christian Booksellers Association midwinter Expo)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... ALTHOUGH THE CHRISTIAN BOOKSELLERS Association midwinter Expo, held January 26- 30 in Nashville, drew more buyers than last year, they came to a more subdued show with fewer book-related special events. One publisher, who requested...

Jerusalem Int'l Fair Names Fellows.(Review)
February 22, 1999... TEN AMERICAN BOOK EDITORS were among the 27 selected as Editorial Fellows for the 1999 Jerusalem International Book Fair. The editors, chosen from a record number of applicants for their promise in book publishing, will make up the eighth...

B'mann Purchase Of Springer Approved.(Bertelsmann AG and Springer)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... THE MEGAMERGER of Bertelsmann and Germany's international scientific publisher Springer has received the green light from the European Union's monopolies and mergers commission, which gives the giant Gutersloh a strong position in the U.S....

NOT EVERYBODY GOT FLOWERS OR CANDY.(Laura Corn books)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Three Laura Corn books--101 Nights of Grrreat Sex, 101 Nights of Grrreat Romance and 52 Invitations to Grreat Sex--make a first appearance on the trade paper charts this week. This week's tallies included books bought as Valentine's Day...

YA-YA BEGINS TWO, TOO.(Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood begins second year as bestseller)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Not every bestseller enjoys a tenure of a year or more on the bestseller charts, but Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood begins its second year ensconced on PW's trade paper list. Who would have thought that a HarperPerennial 1997 first...

KUDOS FOR TYNDALE.(fiction titles cross over)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... While Tyndale's Left Behind apocalyptic fiction titles have been regulars on PW's monthly religion bestseller charts, it's still quite a feat when these books cross over to a general and more secular bestseller list. Book five, Apollyon, does...

Hot Growth for Cool Springs.(Cool Springs Press growing)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... COOL SPRINGS PRESS, a small publisher based in Franklin, Tenn., had a "great year" in 1998 with sales doubling for the fourth year in a row, according to the company's founder and president Roger Waynick. The company has built its success as...

Printers Row Book Fair Plans for '99.(book fair)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Without BEA in Chicago for piggyback promotion, 15-year-old fair still plots for a successful outing ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET 14 years ago, the Printers Row Book Fair set up camp on a tiny one-block parcel in Chicago's historic south loop...

Parable Group Launches Test Catalogue.(chain of book stores)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... THE PARABLE GROUP, a Christian consortium of 332 independently owned stores in 41 states and Canada, has launched a "one order" testing program with Riverside Distributors of Iowa Falls, Iowa. The test is being conducted in four Parable...

L-S Distributors Closing.(book wholesaler)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... L.S DISTRIBUTORS of South San Francisco has become the second West Coast wholesaler to recently close its doors. (Cal-West Periodicals of Stockton, Calif., closed in late 1998.) The wholesaler was founded as a newspaper distributor, in 1956,...

An Indie's Key to Survival.(bookstore Gualala Books survives through local support)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... GUALALA BOOKS--which was on the verge of going belly up only 10 months ago--is now preparing to celebrate its upcoming 10th anniversary in June. The small bookstore on the north coast of California has figured out the key to an independent's...

The American Invasion of British Bookselling.(book stores in England)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN--the battle for Britain's book buyers, that is--was recently fought not on the beaches, fields or hills but on the bridges and canals of Venice, the site of the winter session of the Mauri Foundation's advanced...

A Kaleidoscope of New Products.
February 22, 1999... New array of spring sidelines includes Net-savvy interactive plush toys THE NEW YEAR is delivering a spate of new products, many celebrating company anniversaries, jumping on the millennial bandwagon or striking out into the great...

Clinton Books Also Plagued by Legal Problems.(authors writing about President Bill Clinton in legal hot water)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Books about what led to impeachment face their own trials JUST AS SOME HOT Clinton scandal-related books are primed for release, legal wrenches are being thrown in the works. On February 5, Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff was served...

Verso's Adversarial Authors.
February 22, 1999... THERE'S NOTHING LIKE a roaring media frenzy to unhinge a publishing schedule. So it's no surprise that Verso, a small, lefty political and cultural publisher, has decided to rush into print next month British journalist Christopher Hitchens's...

A Winning Hand at Mystery.
February 22, 1999... SPADES HAVE ALWAYS been a symbol of bad luck in cards, but they're proving to be a sign of good fortune for the University of California Press. Its November release, Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades, a historical mystery by veteran...

Logan's Run in Thrillers.
February 22, 1999... AS LITERARY FICTION and narrative nonfiction seem to be gaining in readers'- and acquiring editors'-favor, it's been a bit chilly in the commercial fiction category lately. But the category is hardly moribund; HarperCollins's executive...

A Small House Is Good.
February 22, 1999... THAT'S DOUBLY TRUE in the case of Sarah Susanka's The Not So Big House. The home design title, released in September with an advance of 12,000 copies and now at 115,000 copies in print, specifically advocates a more compact abode. But the...

Good Times Returning For Children's Publishing?(children's books)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Early indicators suggest solid gain in the near term THE BOOK INDUSTRY Study Group is projecting that Sales of children's books will increase 5.7% to $2.63 billion in 1999, and that sales will rise a total of 17.5% through 2002 when total...

Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants Wins a Starring Role.(the publishing of 'The Adventures of Captain Underpants')(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... A DECIDEDLY UNORTHODOX protagonist--a school principal transformed by two mischievous students into a briefs-clad superhero--has been making kids laugh and cash registers hum since 1997, when he first appeared in Day Pilkey's The Adventures...

Editing Novels: First Do No Harm.(advice on editing)(Brief Article)(Column)
February 22, 1999... A WHILE BACK I wrote a book about the editing of novels. The premise was that you need sensibility--apt responsiveness--to be a good editor. But you also need craft. Sensibility can't be learned. Craft can. (All of which is equally true of...

Open Sesame.(Linux operating system)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Uncopyrighted software, free for the downloading, fuels new computer books THE HOTTEST THING in computer publishing for the coming season, though it was almost unknown just a year ago, is something called Open Source software. The name...

COMPUTER BESTSELLERS.(books)(Illustration)
February 22, 1999... COMPUTER BESTSELLERS OPERATING SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS 1 Windows 98 for Dummies. Andy 1 MS Office 97 for Windows for Rathbone. IDG, ...

Children's Book Characters Star on TV.(turning books into television programs)
February 22, 1999... A large television audience and a literary track record can be a potent combination DEVELOPING TV SERIES from books and book characters has become a fast-growing area of the entertainment business, as television producers seek...

Peter Bart: Inside the Dream Factory.(Review)
February 22, 1999... IT'S A RITE OF February as inevitable as Groundhog Day. In a pre-dawn ceremony in Los Angeles, Jack Valenti, the granite-jawed CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, appears before a battery of TV cameras and unveils the...

COAST TO COAST.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Frederic Raphael. Catbird, $22.95 (240p) ISBN 0-945774-42-7 "It's not a tragedy. It's not quite a comedy. My agent would not be surprised to discover that we're having difficulty placing it." It's also how late-middle-aged sit-corn...

KEEPING FAITH.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Jodi Picoult. Morrow, $24 (384p) ISBN 0-688-16825-6 Fans of Picoult's fluent and absorbing storytelling will welcome her new novel, which, like Harvesting the Heart, explores family dynamics and the intricacies of motherhood, and...

LOVE IN A DEAD LANGUAGE.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Lee Siegel. Univ. of Chicago, $22.50 (312p) ISBN 0-226-75697-1 "General observations, copulation, seduction, marriage, adultery prostitutes, and erotic arcana," the seven subjects treated by the Kamasutra, are also the motifs of Siegel's...

ELEANOR RUSHING.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Patty Friedmann. Counterpoint, $23 (288p) ISBN 1-58243-003-9 The tart, sassy voice of the eponymous heroine of Friedmann's intriguing and touching new novel lures the reader into Eleanor's chronicle of her obsessive passion for a New...

SUGAR LAND.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Joni Rodgers. Spinsters Ink, $12 paper (352p) ISBN 1-883523-32-X The girl-power quotient runs high in Rodgers's alternately wrenching and humorous follow-up to her debut, Crazy for Trying, a finalist for the 1996 Barnes & Noble Discover...

OHIO ANGELS.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Harriet Chessman. Permanent, $22 (144p) ISBN 1-57962-020-5 Nostalgia--the longing for a homecoming-draws the heroine of Chessman's lyrical debut back to the past in an Ohio town where time seems to stand still. When Virginia Greaves takes...

MAN OF THE HOUR.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Peter Blauner. Little, Brown, $24 (432p) ISBN 0-316-03817-2 Thorough reportage and dead-on description make Blauner's latest city-streets novel (after 1997's paperback bestseller The Intruder) as impressive for its realism as for its...

THE BURNING ROAD.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Ann Benson. Delacorte, $23.95 (469p) ISBN 0-385-33289-0 Boldly conceived as two parallel fictional journeys separated by 650 years and linked by an ancient, mysterious manuscript promising miraculous cures, Benson's sequel to The Plague...

THE LEPER'S COMPANION.(Review)
February 22, 1999... Julia Blackburn. Pantheon, $22 (208p) ISBN 0-679-43984-6 Much praised for her elegant writing and originality, British biographer and novelist Blackburn has set a new standard for herself in her exquisite second novel (after The Book of...

THE COLDEST WINTER EVER.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Sister Souljah. Pocket, $23 (326p) ISBN 0-671-02578-3 Hip-hop star, political activist and now writer, Sister Souljah exhibits a raw and true voice (though her prose is rough and unsophisticated) in this cautionary tale protesting drugs...

WHITE OLEANDER.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Janet Fitch. Little, Brown, $24 (384p) ISBN 0-316-28526-9 Thirteen-year-old Astrid Magnussen, the sensitive and heart-wrenching narrator of this impressive debut, is burdened with an impossible mother in Ingrid, a beautiful, gifted poet...

HOLLYWOOD & HARDWOOD.(Review)
February 22, 1999... Tricia Bauer. Bridge Works, $22.95 (l92p) ISBN l-882593-26-X Lou, a playwright, and Renata, an actress, meet and fall almost immediately in love at summer stock in Vermont. Against the cynical wagers of friends and family, but in a dream...

IN THE EMPIRE OF DREAMS.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Dianne Highbridge. Soho, $24 (256p) ISBN 1-56947-146-0 Candid disillusionment and a fragile, exquisite hopefulness characterize Highbridge's sensitive assortment of expatriates living, teaching and growing older in Japan. Most of these 10...

THE SOPRANOS.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Alan Warner. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23 (256p) ISBN 0-374-26670-0 FYI: The Sopranos was a bestseller in England. Hottie-tottie Scots girls slosh and snog their way through Warner's (Morvern Callar) bacchanalian novel wi' no a care...

DATING MISS UNIVERSE.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Steven Polansky. Ohio State Univ., $26 (195p) ISBN 0-8142-0818-5; paper $15.95-5019-X With the surgical skill of his literary forebear Raymond Carver, Polansky cuts away the skin of conventional relationships and love as it's normally...

DRIVING THE HEART.(Review)
February 22, 1999... Jason Brown. Norton, $23 (l92p) ISBN 0-393-04721-0 In one of the 13 stories in this extraordinary debut collection, a boy recalls the wisdom of an elderly woman: "alteration of reality into new forms created a beauty more true than what I...

THE BOOK OF HAPPINESS.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Nina Berberova, trans. by Marian Schwartz. New Directions, $23.95 (224p) ISBN 0-8112-1401-x Russian emigre writer Berberova, who died in 1993, is known primarily for her memoirs and her criticism. Marian Schwartz, the translator of this...

OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Joanna Trollope. Viking, $23.95 (304p)ISBN 0-670-88513-4 A skilled artisan of nuance and insight reveals a vigorous new edge as she explores the painful and contentious arena of stepfamilies. Here Trollope focuses on three women and two...

IN THE RED.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Regan C. Ashbaugh. Pocket, $24 (468p) ISBN 0-671-01890-6 Weary and hard-boiled, the firefighting hero of Ashbaugh's (Downtick) tough-guy thriller has, regrettably, too much in common with the novel's prose. As the mansions of Westchester...

I LEFT MY BACK DOOR OPEN.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... April Sinclair. Hyperion, $22.95 (304p) ISBN 0-7868-6229-7 "I am not young, or thin, or white, or beautiful," says the narrator of Sinclair's worldly-wise and entertaining new novel. Gun-shy after several catastrophic relationships,...

THE SEA CAME IN AT MIDNIGHT.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Steve Erickson. Bard, $23 (272p) ISBN 0-380-97766-4 Strip clubs, sexual slavery, Paris dreams, New York horror and California misery catastrophically define and entrap the troubled margin-dwellers inhabiting this penetrating dream vision...

MOSAIC.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... John R. Maxim. Avon, $24 (384p) ISBN 0-380-97544-0 Leave it to someone as clever as the author of Haven to come up with a crackerjack thriller premise based on MPD (multiple personality disorder). Dr. Norman Zales is the director of...

THE MAHDI: A Millennium Thriller.(Review)
February 22, 1999... Margo Dockendorf. Cypress House (155 Cypress St., Fort Bragg, Calif. 95437; 707-964-9520), $24.95 (440p) ISBN 1-879384-35-3 Confusing thinly veiled proselytizing with millennial thrills, this sincere, albeit clumsily repetitive first...

THE LUST LIZARD OF MELANCHOLY COVE.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Christopher Moore. Avon/Spike, $23 (320p) ISBN 0-380-97506-8 With in-your-face, South Park-worthy humor that only once slips into the truly offensive, Moore (Island of the Sequined Love Nun) has written the definitive Prozac allegory....

RIVER OF SOULS.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Ivon B. Blum. Sunstone, $34.95 (320p) ISBN 0-86534-281-4 Pedro Cortez, son of a Taos horse rancher, finds himself caught up in the complex struggle of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) in Blum's loosely historical novel. The American...

COLLECTING SINS.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Steven Sobel. Santa Monica, $13 paper (288p) ISBN 1-891661-04-3 The grown-up world of sex and drugs in Southern California during the late 1960s is explored by 15-year-old Ben, an affable but often clueless kid who narrates Sobel's...

MISTAKEN IDENTITY.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Lisa Scottoline. HarperCollins, $24 (496p) ISBN 0-06-018747-6 Double jeopardy is more than just a legal term in this taut and smart courtroom drama by Edgar Award winner Scottoline. Bennie Rosato, the irrepressible head of an all-female...

THE BOY ORATOR.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Tracy Daugherty Southern Methodist Univ., $19.95 (264p) ISBN 0-87074-433-X The orator of this detailed historical novel is Harry Shaughnessy, a boy born in Texas just before the turn of the century. Harry's father, Andrew, grooms his son...

POOL HOPPING: And Other Stories.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Anne Fleming. Polestar (LPC, dist.), $13.95 paper (222p) ISBN 1-896095-18-6 The earthy, emotional characters of Fleming's first collection can, in moments of poetic sobriety, call a sheep a sheep (or a suicide a suicide, a betrayal a...

VECTOR.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Robin Cook. Putnam, $24.95 (416p) ISBN 0-399-14471-4 In this age of lethal bioweapons, there's a frightening logic in the idea that your next breath might kill you. Alas, Cook's latest, about an impending bioterrorist attack in New York...

MARCH PUBLICATIONS.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Stephen Crane's seminal Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage first appeared in an abridged form of from one to six installments in the syndicated press in 1894. The next year, Crane reinserted the cut text for its publication as a novel....

IN A DRY SEASON.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Peter Robinson. Avon Twilight, $24 (432p) ISBN 0-380-97581-5 Anyone who loves a good mystery should curl up gratefully with a cuppa to enjoy this rich 10th installment of the acclaimed British police procedural series. Detective Chief...

PUBLISH AND BE MURDERED.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Ruth Dudley Edwards. Poisoned Pen (6962 B. First Ave., #103, Scottsdale, Ariz. 85251; 602-945-3375), $12.95 paper (2l7p) ISBN 1-890208-13-2 In his seventh outing, Robert Amiss, lapsed civil servant, is approached by Lord Papworth, owner...

DEADBEAT.(Review)
February 22, 1999... Wendi Lee. St. Martin's, $22.95 (256p) ISBN 0-312-16812-8 Boston PI Angela Matelli may be an expert at aikido with a wry sense of humor and a social conscience, but her engaging traits can't conceal the utter predictability of her third...

CRIME WAVE: Fiction and Reportage from the Underside of L.A.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... James Ellroy, introduction by Art Cooper. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, $12 paper (256p) ISBN 0-375-70471-X Ellroy's obsessions--Tinseltown tabloid sleaze and his mother's murder--have fueled his writing and provided readers with countless...

MURDER AT MEDICINE LODGE.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Mardi Oakley Medawar. St. Martin's, $23.95 (272p) ISBN 0-312-19925-2 While attending a peace conference with federal government officials at Medicine Lodge, Okla., the Kiowa representative, White Bear, is accused of murdering a U.S. Army...

DIRTY LINEN.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Nicholas Kilmer. Holt, $24 (256p) ISBN 0-8050-5034-5 A cache of erotic drawings of uncertain provenance is the centerpiece of Kilmer's (Harmony in Flesh and Black) latest art world mystery. Acting for eccentric collector Clayton Reed,...

DIRTY POOL.(Review)(Brief Article)
February 22, 1999... Steve Brewer. St. Martin's, $23.95 (272p) ISBN 0-312-20203-2 PI Bubba Mabry (Shaky Ground, etc.) makes his fifth appearance in this funny and occasionally touching mystery. Texas millionaire Dick Johnson hires Bubba to deliver the ransom...