Publishers Weekly articles from February 2011

Publishers Weekly archives from February 2011

Wire to Wire.(Pick of the week: Riding the Rails)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * Wire to Wire Scott Sparling. Tin House (PGW, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (392p) ISBN 978-1-935639-05-3 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When rail rider Michael Slater gets smacked in the head by a power line while riding a train through...

B&N looks for the right print, digital balance: the retailer's conundrum: digital fastest-growing, bookstores most profitable.(News)(Barnes & Noble)
February 28, 2011... Barnes & Noble's third-quarter results for the period ended January 29 shows the dilemma faced by companies making the transition from print to digital. In the case of B&N, while its fastest growth is tied to the sale of e-books and Nook...

Borders's creditors committee named.(Borders Group)(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... The official committee of unsecured creditors involved with Borders Group's Chapter 11 filing was approved with representatives from Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House, and Perseus Books Group. Other reps are from Sony Music, GGP Limited...

Kodansha, Dai Nippon buy vertical.(Dai Nippon Printing Company Ltd., Kodansha Publishers Ltd.)(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... The Japanese publishing giant Kodansha has joined with Japanese printing giant Dai Nippon Printing to acquire Vertical Inc., a publisher of Japanese prose fiction and nonfiction and classic manga in translation with offices in Tokyo and New York...

An anniversary for dummies.(Iconic Brand)
February 28, 2011... You know the iPod commercial that says "there's an app for that"? Chances are, if there's something you want to learn how to do, there's a Dummies book for that. With some 1,800 titles in print, there are guides to 529s and other college savings...

Free Press nabs Sweden's 'crime sisters'.(Deals)(Camilla Grebe and Asa Traff)(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... Free Press executive v-p and publisher Martha Levin bought North American rights, at auction, to the first two titles in a best-selling Swedish series by sisters Camilla Grebe and Asa Traff. Anna Frankl and Joakim Hansson at the Nordin Agency...

Ellis 'improvises' for Knopf.(Deals)(Joseph Ellis)(Random House Inc. Knopf Publishing Group)(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... John Taylor "Ike" Williams at Kneerim & Williams closed a world rights deal for Pulitzer-winner Joseph Ellis with Ash Green and Dan Frank at Knopf. In the new book, Great Improvisations: Politics and War in the Summer of 1776, Ellis, who...

Square one goes to the Cats.(Deals)(Cat Calls: Wonderful Stories and Practical Advice from a Big City Cat Sitter)(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... Square One president Rudy Shur acquired a book by Jeanne Adlon, a woman he calls New York City's "first full-time cat sitter" after she started offering the service 33 years ago. Shur took world rights to Cat Calls: Wonderful Stories and...

Walden pond lands trader turned YA novelist.(Deals)(Walden Pond Press and young adult novelist John Thompson)(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... John Thompson, a former trader at Salomon Brothers, sold his first YA novel to Walden Pond Press, the joint venture between Walden Media and HarperCollins. Stephen Barbara at Foundry Literary + Media handled the North American rights deal for...

Kent Carroll at Europa Editions took U.S. and Canadian rights to Steve Erickson's These Dreams of You.(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... Kent Carroll at Europa Editions took U.S. and Canadian rights to Steve Erickson's These Dreams of You. Melanie Jackson brokered the deal for Erickson, who lives in Los Angeles and is the film critic for Los Angeles magazine. The novel,...

Correction.(Deals)(Correction notice)
February 28, 2011... In last week's column, Jennifer Gates at Zachary Schuster Harmsworth was mentioned as the sole agent on a two-book deal for John and Sherry Petersik with Artisan. Gates just handled the auction on behalf of ZSH agent Rachel Sussman.

RH offers early retirement.(Random House )(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... Random House is offering an early retirement package to staffers 50 and over, featuring enhanced benefits. The package is open to U.S. employees who have been at the publisher for at least five years. A company spokesperson said the offer is not...

Haymarket author denied Visa.(Omar Barghouti )(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... Haymarket Books expects to put on hold a book tour for Omar Barghouti scheduled for April because the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem has denied him a visa. Barghouti, the founding member of the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment,...

NACS in deal with BookRenter.(National Association of College Stores )(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... The National Association of College Stores is partnering with the online textbook company BookRenter. Through NACSCORP, the association's wholesale distributor subsidiary, NACS will offer three BookRenter services to its 3,100 members.

Kevin Davis, Green Apple Books, San Francisco, Calif.(Galley Talk)(Blood, Bones, & Butter )(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Gabrielle Hamilton's sumptuous chef memoir, Blood, Bones, & Butter (Random House, Mar.) satisfies like an earthy, exhilarating ragout. Learning the art of brasserie cooking from her mother, she spends a decade working in warehouse catering...

Entrepreneurs at tools of change.(New Models)(Conference notes)
February 28, 2011... Besides an avalanche of programming and keynote presentations, O'Reilly Media's recent Tools of Change Conference also featured about 35 exhibitors in two locations in the Sheraton Hotel in New York as well as panelists and roving bands of...

Landis, Sun to HC Children's.(People)(Sarah Landis, Caroline Sun join HarperCollins Children's Books)(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... Sarah Landis has been named senior editor at HarperCollins Children's Books. Landis was most recently an editor at Hyperion Books/Voice, where her authors included Lauren Goff (The Monsters of Templeton) and Cathy Marie Buchanan (The Day the...

McLendon to Twelve.(People)(Brian McLendon )(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... Brian McLendon has been named associate publisher of Twelve. McLendon, who will start at the Hachette imprint on March 7, is currently v-p and deputy director of publicity at Ballantine Bantam Dell, and an agent director of the Random House...

McLellan, Harriot to Folio.(People)(Sarah Sper McLellan joins Folio Literary Management )(Brief article)
February 28, 2011... Sarah Sper McLellan has joined Folio Literary Management as an agent, focusing on Christian/inspirational, narrative nonfiction, memoir, and prescriptive nonfiction, with an emphasis on health, wellness, diet, relationships, and self-help....

Nordic crime dominates.(Selling Abroad)
February 28, 2011... If January is any indication, 2011 is going to be another big year for Nordic crime all over the world. While Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy continues its run on many international lists, those books aren't alone. In the U.K., Norwegian Jo...

First Amendment fan boys.(Free Expression)
February 28, 2011... Founded 25 years ago, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the First Amendment rights of cartoonists, publishers, retailers, and librarians, is coming off a big year. Besides electing cartoonist...

Children's series and tie-ins bestsellers.
February 28, 2011... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] YA science fiction novel I Am Number Four is not really by Pittacus Lore, who is one of the Loric elders mentioned m the book. Rather, it was co-written by adult author James Frey and Jobie Hughes, a graduate of...

Hardcover bestsellers/fiction.
February 28, 2011... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "The girl on the gurney could live with a piece of lead in her hip and a piece of lead in her shoulder. But a piece of lead inside her brain was a trauma of a wholly different magnitude. He was suddenly aware of the...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.
February 28, 2011... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As she did in her controversial 2010 work, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa, economist Moyo again takes a tough tack in her new bestseller, subtitled Fifty Years of Economic...

Paperback bestsellers/mass market.
February 28, 2011... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Attention, You Tube aficionados--a group that must surely be at least 95% of the populace. For an intriguing four minutes, check out "The Making of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol" (We especially like the modest headline...

Paperback bestsellers/trade.
February 28, 2011... Movie Update # 1. Did The King's Speech take home Oscar gold? (At PW's press time, the winners were anybody's guess; now, the golden statues have been handed out and the customary bashes are but distant memories.) King's was the odds-on lave...

Audio bestsellers/fiction.
February 28, 2011... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Ansari looked up briefly as the servant girl set down his cup of tea and she smiled, displaying perfectly even white teeth. As Ansari turned back to his work, her smile disappeared like a pebble dropped into a pond....

Audio bestsellers/nonfiction.
February 28, 2011... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Kenneth C. Davis's book argues that the first Pilgrims to settle m America weren't English and didn't sail over on the Mayflower. They were French Protestants seeking freedom from prosecution--and the opportunity to...

YA novel unearths lost chapter in history.(Children's Books)(young adult novel entitled 'Between Shades of Gray' by Ruta Sepety)(Critical essay)
February 28, 2011... A simple question sparked the idea for Ruta Sepetys's first novel for young adults, Between Shades of Gray, about Stalin's genocide in the Baltic states during WWII. On a visit to her family in Lithuania in 2005, Sepetys asked to see photographs...

One book, one day, 10 countries: international publishers collaborate to launch the final book in Jean Auel's Earth's Children series.(International Publishing)
February 28, 2011... This spring, bestselling author Jean Auel will publish The Land of Painted Caves, the sixth and final installment in the Earth's Children series, which began with the 1980 classic The Clan of the Cave Bear. Some 30 years later, with more than 45...

A world with fewer borders: a downsized chain doesn't necessarily mean a windfall for indies.(RETAIL NATION)
February 28, 2011... As the bookstore chains grew in the 1980s and '90s, the number of independent booksellers fell dramatically, but those that survived expect little pop from the impending closing of 200 Borders stores as part of the retailer's bankruptcy...

Seven stories gets Stieg Larsson's personal and political back story.(Independent Publishing)(There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me )(Book review)
February 28, 2011... This summer Seven Stories is counting on the continued appetite among U.S. and Canadian readers for all things Stieg Larsson and a certain tattooed hacker, when it goes out with an 80,000-copy first printing of "There Are Things I Want You to...

Digitizing the world: travel guide publishers are asking: to print or not to print?
February 28, 2011... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Travel guides: the canaries in the digital coal mine. While no category of print books is immune to the changes wrought by growth in e-books and apps, books on travel--with their need for constant updating--lend...

Why I write...
February 28, 2011... We all have pastimes. I don't knit or follow sports. I don't do crossword puzzles. I can't play cribbage. But I do write. I journal (just for myself) when I'm going through tough personal times. I write poems (to my partner) when I'm in love. I...

War and peace in Jerusalem.(Author Profile)('Jerusalem, Jerusalem' by James Carroll)
February 28, 2011... James Carroll, a novelist, memoirist, and historian, may have left the priesthood as a young man, but the priesthood has never quite left him. Passionate and charismatic, he goads our conscience and tells painfully inconvenient truths, whether...

Lime Creek.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Lime Creek Joe Henry. Random, $24 (160p) ISBN 978-14000-6941-5 Songwriter and ex-rancher Henry's slight and earthy debut, a short volume of eight connected stories of the high plains, begins with Spencer Davis, "an interloper in a cowboy...

The London Train.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The London Train Tessa Hadley. Harper Perennial, $14.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-201183-1 Hadley's fourth novel (after The Master Bedroom) is at once a melancholy and delightful story about Paul, a poet and father of three going...

One Summer.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... One Summer David Baldacci. Grand Central, $25.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-44648314-5 Legal thriller fixture Baldacci (Deliver Us from Evil) churns out a creaky, contrived family drama about Jack Armstrong, a terminally ill family man just...

Paradise Dogs.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Paradise Dogs Man Martin. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-66256-1 Florida real estate agent Adam Newman is a befuddled and besotted charmer who wants what he can't have and pretends to be what he isn't in this zany...

The Summer of the Bear.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Summer of the Bear Bella Pollen. Atlantic Monthly, $24 (448p) ISBN 978-0-8021-1974-2 The Fleming family, having lost father and husband Nicky, a cold war-era British diplomat, in a mysterious accident early in this satisfying novel...

Children and Fire.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Children and Fire Ursula Hegi. Scribner, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-14516-0829-8 Hegi returns in her languid latest to the fictional village of Burgdoff, Germany, from Stones from the River and The Vision of Emma Blau, focusing this time on...

Long Drive Home.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Long Drive Home Will Allison. Free Press, $22 (224p) ISBN 9781-4165-4303-9 Allison follows What You Have Left with a tight drama, part psychological thriller, part tragedy. Glen is an accountant living in New Jersey with his successful...

Beneath a Starlet Sky.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Beneath a Starlet Sky Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper. St. Martin's, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 9780-312-54442-3 Tinseltown princesses Goldberg and Hopper (Celebutantes) are back with another softball skewering of the unbridled egos...

22 Britannia Road.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... 22 Britannia Road Amanda Hodgkinson.Viking/Pamela Dorman, $25.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-670-02263-2 In her powerful debut, Hodgkinson takes on the tale of a family desperately trying to put itself back together after WWII. Silvana and Janusz...

The Coffins of Little Hope.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * The Coffins of Little Hope Timothy Schaffert. Unbridled, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-609-53040-2 It's small town, big drama in Schaffert's sublime latest (after Devils in the Sugar Shop) as Essie Myles, an 83-year-old widowed obituary...

The Long-Shining Waters.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Long-Shining Waters Danielle Sosin. Milkweed (PGW, dist.), $24 (288p) ISBN 978-1-57131-083-5 Lake Superior proves to be more than a bucolic backdrop for Sosin's debut novel. It swallows fishing nets, boats, and even men, and shapes...

At Home with the Templetons.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... At Home with the Templetons Monica McInerney. Ballantine, $15 trade paper (496p) ISBN 978-0-345-51865-1 Everything is not as it seems in McInerney's entertaining exploration of family relationships amid romance and turmoil. When the...

PW talks with Arthur Phillips: all lies.(Q&A)(Interview)
February 28, 2011... Arthur Phillips wrote a Shakespeare play. Or maybe a fictional version of his father wrote it. Or maybe it's the real deal. Read all about it in The Tragedy of Arthur (reviewed on p. 34), his inspired latest. Where'd the idea to write a new...

The Last Time I Saw Paris.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Last Time I Saw Paris Lynn Sheene. Berkley, $15 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-425-24084-7 A farm girl turned Manhattan socialite lands in Paris just ahead of the Wehrmacht in Sheene's perfunctory debut. When Claire Harris's rich...

The Tragedy of Arthur.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * The Tragedy of Arthur Arthur Phillips. Random, $26 (380p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6647-6 A long-lost Shakespeare play surfaces in Phillips's wily fifth novel, a sublime faux memoir framed as the introduction to the play's first printing--a...

The Albuquerque Turkey.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Albuquerque Turkey John Vorhaus. Crown, $23 (272p) ISBN 978-0-307-71780-1 At the start of Vorhaus's entertaining sequel to The California Rail, grifter Radar Hoverlander, who's been trying to fly beneath the radar and turn over a new...

The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, The Ones You Do.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, The Ones You Do David Woodrell. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $16.99 trade paper (512p) ISBN 978-0-316-13365 -4 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Collected in a single volume for the...

Bel-Air Dead: A Stone Barrington Novel.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Bel-Air Dead: A Stone Barrington Novel Stuart Woods. Putnam, $25,95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15736-3 Woods's dizzyingly paced 20th Stone Barrington novel (after Strategic Moves) takes the New York attorney to Los Angeles to represent recent...

Daniel Stein, Interpreter .(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Daniel Stein, Interpreter Ludmila Ulitskaya, trans, from the Russian by Arch Tait. Overlook, $27.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1-59020-320-0 In her fourth book to be translated into English (for which Tait won the PEN Literature in Translation...

Chasing Fire.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * Chasing Fire Nora Roberts. Putnam, $27.95 (480p) ISBN 978-0-399-15744-8 This searing stand-alone from bestseller Roberts (The Search) celebrates the smoke jumpers of Missoula, Mont., who routinely risk life and limb to beat down raging...

Devil Wind.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Devil Wind Deborah Shlian and Linda Reid. Oceanview (Midpoint, dist.), $25.95 (392p) ISBN 978-1-933515-89-2 Set in the waning days of 1999 in Los Angeles as fierce Santa Ana winds fuel massive wildfires, Shlian and Reid's second thriller...

Devious.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Devious Lisa Jackson. Kensington, $25 (432p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2565-8 Someone is strangling novice nuns in Jackson's terrifying if overwrought seventh Bentz and Montoya novel (after Ma/ice). When NOPD homicide detectives Reuben Montoya and...

Every Shallow Cut.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * Every Shallow Cut Tom Piccirilli. ChiZine (Diamond, dist.), $10.95 trade paper (165p) ISBN 978-1-926851-10-5 Lovers of gritty noir will devour this stand-alone from Piccirilli (Shadow Season), a pulse-pounding account of a writer's...

Far to Go.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Far to Go Alison Pick. Harper Perennial, $14.99 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-203462-5 In her second novel (after The Sweet Edge), Pick tackles the Holocaust with the story of a young Jewish family struggling to survive as the Nazis...

Vienna Waltz.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Vienna Waltz Teresa Grant. Kensington, $15 trade paper (400p) ISBN 978-0-7582-5423-8 A murdered Russian princess creates a diplomatic imbroglio in this magnificent mystery set in the midst of the glittering palaces and ballrooms of the...

Show Stoppah.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Show Stoppah Thomas Slater. S&S/Strebor, $12 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-59309-339-6 Slater, the author of two self-published novels (Run with the Pack and Blue-Collar Diary), makes his professional debut with a provocative if...

The Sweet Smell of Decay: Being the First Chronicle of Harry Lytle.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Sweet Smell of Decay: Being the First Chronicle of Harry Lytle Paul Lawrence. Beautiful (IPG, dist.), $12.95 trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-1-905636-42-6 Set in 1664, Lawrence's promising first in a new series introduces Harry Lytle, a...

The Lightkeeper's Ball .(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Lightkeeper's Ball Colleen Coble. Thomas Nelson, $14.99 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-59554-268-7 In 1910, New York socialite Olivia Stewart resists an arranged, socially advantageous marriage, and the mysterious death of her sister...

An Eye for Glory.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... An Eye for Glory Karl Bacon. Zondervan, $16.99 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-310-32202-3 For his first novel, Bacon has crafted the memoir of a Union Army veteran. Idealistic Michael Palmer enlists to fight slavery in 1862, but the...

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party Alexander McCall Smith. Pantheon, $24.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-307-037839-2 Smith again makes the sublime look easy in his winning 12th No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novel set in present-day Botswana...

Death on Tour.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Death on Tour Janice Hamrick. Minotaur, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-67946-0 A passport's not needed to enjoy Hamrick's ditzy debut, the first in a new cozy series and the winner of the 2010 Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First...

Ashes of the Earth.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * Ashes of the Earth Eliot Pattison. Counterpoint, $26 (368p) ISBN 978-1-58243-644-9 Having successfully portrayed both modern-day Tibet and Colonial America in two series, Edgar-winner Pattison (Eye of the Raven) launches a third with...

One Was a Soldier .(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... One Was a Soldier Julia Spencer-Fleming. Minotaur, $24.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-312-33489-5 Adjusting to civilian life after a tour in Iraq proves difficult for Rev. Clare Fergusson in Spencer-Fleming's resonant and timely seventh mystery...

The Body in the Gazebo.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * The Body in the Gazebo Katherine Hall Page. Morrow, $23.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-147426-2 Two puzzles tax Faith Fairchild in Agatha-winner Page's genial 19th mystery featuring the Aleford, Mass., caterer and amateur sleuth (after 2009's...

Fade to Blue: An Evan Borne Mystery .(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Fade to Blue: An Evan Borne Mystery Bill Moody. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (282p) ISBN 978-1-59058-894-9; $14.95 paper ISBN 978-1-59058-896-3 Jazz drummer Moody's less than successful seventh Evan Horne mystery (after 2008's Shades of Blue)...

Mourning Gloria.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Mourning Gloria Susan Wittig Albert. Berkley Prime Crime, $25.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-425-23913-1 In Albert's formulaic if still enjoyable 19th China Bayles mystery (after 2010's Holly Blues), the Pecan Springs, Tex., herbalist discovers a...

False Money: An Abbot Agency Mystery .(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... False Money: An Abbot Agency Mystery Veronica Heley. Severn, $28.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-7278-6985-2 At the start of Heley's uninspired fifth Abbot Agency mystery (after 2010's False Pretences), 19-year-old Chris, a friend of Bea Abbot's...

Bit Player: A Jeri Howard Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Bit Player: A Jeri Howard Mystery Janet Dawson. Perseverance (SCB, dist.), $14.95 trade paper (282p) ISBN 978-1-56474-494-4 In Dawson's delightful 10th Jeri Howard mystery (after 2000's A Killing at the Track), the elderly proprietor of a...

Surrender the Dark.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Surrender the Dark L.A. Banks. Pocket, $7.99 mass market (400p) ISBN 978-1-4516-0778-9 Bestseller Banks (Shadow Walker) packs plenty of drama, religion, the paranormal, and urban grit into this flashy series launch. Celeste Jackson has...

The Alchemist in the Shadows .(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Alchemist in the Shadows Pierre Pevel. Pyr, $16 trade paper (286p)ISBN 978-1-61614-365-7 This deeply satisfying sequel to 2010's The Cardinal's Blades sends Capt. La Fargue, half-dragon Saint-Lucq, and the rest of the elite team...

Shady Lady.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Shady Lady Ann Aguirre. Roc, $7.99 mass market (336p) ISBN 978-0-451-46325-8 Violent revenge threatens a demon-touched amateur witch in the solid third Corine Solomon adventure (after 2010's Hell Fire). Corine is ready to return to her...

The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse .(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse Steven C. Schlozman. Grand Central, $19.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-446-56466-3 Presented as the journal kept by a neuroscientist investigating the medical causes of zombiism, Schlozman's...

Hamlet's Father.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Hamlet's Father Orson Scott Card. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $35 (96p) ISBN 978-1-59606-269-6 Hugo and Nebula-winner Card (Pathfinder) tinkers with the backstory of Shakespeare's play in this flimsy novella. When Hamlet is a...

Engines of Desire.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Engines of Desire Livia Llewellyn. Lethe (www.lethepressbooks.com), $18 trade paper (214p) ISBN 978-1-59021-324-7 These 10 powerful stories mark relative newcomer Llewellyn as a writer to watch in the genres of dark fantasy, horror, and...

The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller Carol Emshwiller. Nonstop (IPG, dist.), $29.95 (576p) ISBN 978-1-933065-22-9 In her introduction, Emshwiller (The Secret City) says, "I've never known quite what to call my writing." Readers of...

The Dragon's Path.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * The Dragon's Path Daniel Abraham. Orbit, $15 trade paper (592p) ISBN 978-0-316-08068-2 Abraham (the Seasons of War quartet) starts this rich, exciting, and fresh epic fantasy series opener in a fairly standard fashion: an orphaned girl...

Phantom Evil.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... * Phantom Evil Heather Graham. Mira, $24.95 (368p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2953-4 In bestseller Graham's sultry novel of paranormal romantic suspense, Jackson Crow, a former member of the government's Behavioral Sciences Unit in Washington, D.C.,...

Secrets of a Proper Countess .(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... Secrets of a Proper Countess Lecia Cornwall. Avon, $7.99 mass market (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-201893-9 Cornwall's luscious Regency romance has just the right blend of mystery, manners, and passion. Isobel Maitland, the countess of Ashdown, is...

The Return of Black Douglas.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 28, 2011... The Return of Black Douglas Elaine Coffman. Sourcebooks Casablanca, $7.99 mass market (448p) ISBN 978-1-4022-5074-3 While visiting the Scottish tombs of her forebears, American archeologist Isobella Douglas encounters the ghost of her...