Publishers Weekly articles from May 2012

Publishers Weekly archives from May 2012

A life unmoored.(Publishers Weekly: Pick of the week)(Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation )(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... * Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation Rachel Cusk. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $23 (160p) ISBN 9780-374-10213-5 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Recently separated from her husband, British novelist and memoirist Cusk (A Life's Work) chronicles the...

The tortured history of HMH: the company hopes prepackaged bankruptcy will give it a new lease on life.(News)(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt )
May 28, 2012... Born under a mountain of debt in late 2007, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt forced its executives to spend as much time finding ways to keep the company financially afloat as publishing educational materials and trade and reference books. That is one...

Prichard leaving Ingram.(Skip Prichard)(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Skip Prichard, who oversaw the integration of several different Ingram divisions into what is now known as the Ingram Content Group, will step down as president and CEO June 8. Ingram Content chairman John Ingram will assume Prichard's duties as...

BAM results better.(Books-A-Million )(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... The addition of more than 40 former Borders stores last fall helped lift total sales at Books-A-Million 10.5% in the first quarter ended April 28, to $113.1 million, although comp sales fell 4.2%. Sales of print books in the first quarter of...

Fifty Shades trilogy sells 10m.(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... E.L. James's Fifty Shades trilogy has sold more than 10 million copies in print and digital in the six weeks since Random House took over its publication and distribution. Published by RH's Vintage imprint, the series has gone through 60...

Digital Galleys may be expanding publishers' reach, but ARCs remain essential.(Transitions)
May 28, 2012... When NetGalley launched in 2008, many in the industry assumed digital galleys would eventually eliminate print ones. Four years later, digital galleys have proven that they are less of an alternative to the traditional advanced reading copy than...

The weekly scorecard: tracking unit print sales.(News)(Table)
May 28, 2012... THE WEEKLY SCORECARD Tracking Unit Print Sales Unit Sales of Print Books by Category MAY 22, MAY 20, % CHGE % CHGE 2011 2012 WEEK YTD Adult Nonfiction 4,504 ...

Bloomsbury results up.(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Total Sales for the fiscal year just ended at U.K.-based Bloomsbury Publishing rose 5%, to 97.4 million [pounds sterling], and net income increased 55%, to 3.4 mil lion [pounds sterling]. In the fiscal year print sales were up 6%, to 78.9...

Mixed results at Hastings.(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Hastings Entertainment had a mixed start to 2012 as revenue fell 7% to $115.5 million in the quarter ended April 30, 2012, but net income improved to $833,000 from $413,000 in the first quarter of 2011. Book comps dipped 0.8% in the period.

CDA relocates to West Coast.(Callaway Digital Arts )(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Callaway Digital Arts is shutting its New York offices and studio and relocating all of its operations to its San Francisco studio by the summer. The move will affect about 25 employees.

How a 15-year-old built a library.(Innovator)(Lilli Leight)
May 28, 2012... Inside Chapman Partnership, a Miami-Dade nonprofit dedicated to supporting and rebuilding the lives of the city's homeless, there is a library of 5,000 books. The library is the result of nearly three years of work by Lilli Leight, now 15 years...

JLove Calderon: author, activist, white girl.(Self-Publishing)
May 28, 2012... Jennifer Calderon's panelist bio at the recent National Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y., said she was "a white woman, an author, activist, and social entrepreneur"--not your usual conference introduction. But...

Barbara Peters, the poisoned Pen, Scottsdale, Ariz.(Galley Talk)(Witness the Night )(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Kishwar Desai's unflinching fiction debut, Witness the Night (Penguin, May), speaks volumes to the heart and mind. Set in a small town in Northern India rooted in Punjabi culture, the book employs an unusual narrative structure incorporating...

Atria lands transgender tale.(Deals)(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... In a world rights acquisition, Atria's Sarah Branham bought Janet Mock's memoir, Fish Food, at auction, from Ryan Harbage of the Fischer-Harbage Agency. Mock, an editor at People.com, was born male but had gender reassignment surgery at 18. She...

Viking kids goes 'Blind' for DeWoskin.(Deals)(Rachel DeWoskin )(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rachel DeWoskin (Big Girl Small) sold her first YA novel, Blind, to Regina Hayes at Viking Children's Books. Hayes took world English rights, in a two-book deal, from Jill Grinberg of Jill Grinberg Literary Management....

Penguin Press explores Eleanor's girl.(Deals)(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Colin Dickerman at Penguin Press bought world rights to Eleanor and Hide by biographer Susan Quinn. Jill Kneerim, at Kneerim & Williams, brokered the deal. The book explores the love Eleanor Roosevelt had for reporter Lorena Hickok. Kneerim...

Da Capo gets hitched with 'The Bachelorette'.(Deals)(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Trista Sutter, a former contestant on ABCs The Bachelorette, sold a book about marriage to Renee Sedliar, at Da Capo Press. Sutter is one of the few "stars" of the reality dating show to have married someone she met on-air, and the book, Happily...

AMP debuts kids comics line.(Andrews McMeel Publishing )(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Andrews McMeel Publishing is launching AMP! Comics for Kids, a line of paperback graphic novel stories aimed at middle-grade readers. The line will begin in August 2012 with five titles including two books by Lincoln Peirce, the creator of the...

Harlequin nabs pushcart nominee.(Deals)(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... In a six-figure acquisition, Erika Imranyi, at Harlequin's Mira imprint, took world rights in a two-book deal, to Jason Mott's debut novel, The Returned. Imranyi bought the book at auction from Folio Literary Management's Michelle Brower. The...

Clark closes two-fer.(Deals)(William Clark)(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Agent William Clark, of William Clark Associates, closed two deals last week. In the first, he sold Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Michael Jackson Inc. to Leslie Meredith at Free Press. Clark worked with agent Ed Victor on the deal, and the book, by...

Hubbard inks YA contract with Llewellyn.(Deals)(Mandy Hubbard )(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... D4EO Literary agent and author Mandy Hubbard (But I Love Him) sold her YA novel The Truth About Us to Brian Farrey-Latz at Llewellyn's Flux imprint. Hubbard's colleague Bob Diforio brokered the two-book North American rights deal, and she will...

Hardcover bestsellers/fiction.
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As usual, reviews have been terrific for book 22 in Sanford's Prey series, which launched in 1989 with Rules of Prey. Said PW, "Once again, Sandford smoothly blends action and suspense with a soupcon of humor." The...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Following The Amateur's May 14 pub date, the first week's media lineup included excerpts in the New York Post, Drudge Report stories, Hannity's radio/TV shows, Klein's interviews with Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham, etc....

Paperback bestsellers/mass market.
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] You win some--and some you don't. Though her previous Stephanie Plum title, Smokin' Seventeen (July 2011), was a smashing success, enjoying a 12-week run on our Fiction list and sparking the largest first-day sale for...

Paperback bestsellers/trade.
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "McCullough has hit the historical jackpot," noted PW's starred review of the distinguished historian's 2011 book, which chronicles the American painters, writers, sculptors, and doctors--many of them future household...

Children's series and tie-ins/bestsellers.
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] These days, more than ever, there's a lot of Big Nate to go around. HarperCollins has sold more than four million Big Nate books since 2010-16 in all, including hardcover chapter books and activity books. There are also...

Audio bestsellers/fiction.
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In this latest Installment of James Patterson's popular Women's Murder Club series, detective Lindsay Boxer may be pregnant, bat she's still very much on the job: hunting down a mysterious murderer with access to the...

Audio bestsellers/nonfiction.
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Acclaimed biographer Isaacson examines the remarkable life of 'science's pre-eminent poster boy' in this lucid account.... Isaacson focuses more on Einstein the man: charismatic and passionate, often careless about...

Off and running: the second of two parts on new indie bookstore owners.(Retail Nation)
May 28, 2012... Like their counterparts who have been in the book business for many years, today's new bookstore owners are convinced of the value of bricks-and-mortar stores. Most new stores tend to be small, frequently 1,300 sq. ft. or less, and often fill a...

Maurice Sendak remembered: friends pay tribute to the legendary author and illustrator, who died on May 8.(Children's Books)
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Jules Feiffer I first met Maurice back in the 1950s, when I went up to Harper to meet with their legendary editor Ursula Nordstrom. On taking a look at my samples, she said, "I have a young man inside who you remind...

Authors@ALA 2012: authors are the lifeblood of the American Library Association's Annual Conference, and the event in Anaheim, June 21-25, offers a star-studded lineup.(ALA Preview)(Conference news)
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There will be an abundance of authors at the 136th American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif., June 21-June 26. In the conference's 500 programs, pre-conferences, general sessions, auditorium...

And remember ...(Highlights)
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On June 24, ALA, along with the Carnegie Corporation of New York, will announce the winners of the first Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. This is the first time that the ALA, which...

ALA/proquest scholarship bash with the rock bottom remainders.(Highlights)(Brief article)
May 28, 2012... Authors abound at ALA--but consider the sheer number of books sold in one room when the literary supergroup Rock Bottom Remainders hits the stage on Saturday, June 23, 8-10 p.m., at the Anaheim Convention Center Auditorium. [ILLUSTRATION...

Public defender: 'PW' talks with Jonathan Band, lawyer to the library community.(ALA Preview)(Interview)
May 28, 2012... Can't we all just get along? For all the common interests between the library and publishing communities--interests vividly on display at the ALA annual conference--relations have been strained in recent years by significant legal and...

What's up with hi-lo?(ALA Preview)
May 28, 2012... Many librarians, parents--and even students--are aware of the grim, off-cited statistic: only one-third of eighth-grade students in the U.S. read at or above the proficient level (source: the Nation's Report Card/National Assessment of...

Check it out with Nancy Pearl.(ALA Previews)
May 28, 2012... Q: Going into last year's ALA annual meeting in New Orleans, the library community was feeling the strain. There was considerable talk of stressed budgets and tension over e-books. One year later, can you offer any impressions of where things...

Leadership: PW talks with incoming ALA President Maureen Sullivan.(ALA Preview)(Interview)
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At the 2012 ALA conference in Anaheim, Maureen Sullivan, a long time consultant to numerous libraries of all types, will officially begin her yearlong term as president "of ALA. Sullivan will take over for Molly...

Can 'big data' fix book marketing? Thanks to a new generation of software and computing tools, in the future, book marketing will be determined by data rather than by intuition.(Digital)
May 28, 2012... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If you're a publishing executive and you haven't been reading about Big Data, then you soon will be. Big Data is just what it sounds like--data collections of such enormous size they are awkward, expensive, and...

Occupying democracy: Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco.(Author Profile)
May 28, 2012... Individually, journalists Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco have reported from some of the world's most chaotic war zones, including Bosnia, Gaza, and Iraq. In their first book-length collaboration, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (Nation Books,...

Denting the Bosch.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Denting the Bosch Teresa Link. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-64341-6 Link's pleasant debut follows three middle-aged friends as they navigate unexpected faults in their heretofore fairy tale marriages. After 9/11, Adele...

Say Nice Things About Detroit.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... * Say Nice Things About Detroit Scott Lasser. Norton, $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-393-08299-9 Detroit is autumnal in this quietly moving novel of place; the heyday, the riots, the collapse have already happened, and the city is sinking...

Buddhaland Brooklyn.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Buddhaland Brooklyn Richard C. Morais. Scribner, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-1-4516-6922-0 Morais's latest (after The Hundred-Foot Journey) follows Seido, a Japanese Buddhist priest whose attachment to ritual fortifies him against the heartbreak...

East of Denver.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... East of Denver Gregory Hill. Dutton, $25.95 (240p) iSBN 9780-525-95279-4 In his promising debut, Hill wrings lightness from a hopeless situation. Stacey "Shakespeare" Williams returns to the eastern Colorado farmland of his childhood and...

The Sandcastle Girls.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Sandcastle Girls Chris Bohjalian. Doubleday, $25.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-385-53479-6 Bohjalian's powerful newest (after The Night Strangers) depicts the Armenian genocide and one contemporary novelist's quest to uncover her heritage. In...

Ten Girls to Watch.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Ten Girls to Watch Charity Shumway. Washington Square, $15 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-4516-7341-8 Shumway's easy-going debut follows Dawn West, a recent Harvard grad living in Brooklyn trying to become a writer. She has few friends...

Better with You Here.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Better with You Here Gwendolyn Zepeda. Grand Central, $14.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-446-56403-8 Zepeda (Houston, We Have a Problema) offers a subtle and often amusing look at a single mother struggling to raise her kids in Dallas,...

Telegraph Avenue.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Telegraph Avenue Michael Chabon. Harper, $27.99 (480p) ISBN 978-0-06-149334-8 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Virtuosity" is the word most commonly associated with Chabon, and if Telegraph Avenue, the latest from the Pulitzer Prize-winning...

What Happened to My Sister.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... What Happened to My Sister Elizabeth Flock. Ballantine, $15 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-345-52443-0 In this companion piece to Me and Emma, nine-year-old Carrie and her alcoholic mother flee their small town after Carrie shoots her...

Evel Knievel Days.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Evel Knievel Days Pauls Toutonghi. Crown, $24 (304p) ISBN 978-0-307-38215-3 Butte, Mont., resident, Khosi Saqr, the 20-something son of an Egyptian father who abandoned him at three and an American mother descended from an Irish immigrant,...

Alif the Unseen.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Alif the Unseen G. Willow Wilson. Grove, $25 (440p) ISBN 978-0-8021-2020-5 Set in an unnamed Arab emirate, Wilson's intriguing, colorful first novel centers on a callow Arab-Indian computer hacker who calls himself "Alif," the first letter...

Mountains of the Moon.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Mountains of the Moon I.J. Kay. Viking, $26.95 (354p) ISBN 978-0-670-02367-7 There's no denying that a lot goes down in I.J. Kay's debut, much of it out of chronological order and narrated in a motley pidgin of London Cockney, regressive...

Inland.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Inland Gerald Murnane. Dalkey Archive, $13.95 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-56478-717-0 Murnane's learned novel (after Barley Patch), published in his native Australia in 1988, goes a long way toward capturing why he's been dubbed the...

Never Back Down.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Never Back Down Ernest Hebert. David R. Godine, $24.95 (296p) ISBN 978-1-56792-432-9 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] New England novelist Hebert (The Dogs of March) offers a stirring tale of two young boys and their lifetime friendship in this...

Madame Serpent.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Madame Serpent Jean Plaidy. Touchstone, $16 trade paper (416p) ISBN 978-1-4516-8620-3 Though Plaidy (a pseudonym of the late Eleanor Hibbert) is widely considered to have been one of the pre-eminent writers of historical novels, this...

Beautiful, Dirty, Rich.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Beautiful, Dirty, Rich J.D. Mason. St. Martin's, $24.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-4551-5918-5 Families torn apart by greed and duplicity, characters driven by blinding passion, toe-curling sex, and a moral compass that goes with the flow: Mason...

The Stars Shine Bright.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Stars Shine Bright Sibella Giorello. Thomas Nelson, $15.99 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-1-5955-4536-7 Christy Award--winner Giorello arrives with the fifth in the Raleigh Harmon series, (after The Mountains Bow Down) which brings some...

Bees in the Butterfly Garden.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Bees in the Butterfly Garden Maureen Lang. Tyndale, $12.99 trade paper (432p) ISBN 978-1-4143-6446-9 The sheltered life Meg Davenport has known at a prestigious school is shattered when her estranged father, Skipjack, dies and the...

Crow's Landing.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... * Crow's Landing Brad Smith. Scribner, $12 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-4516-7853-6 In Smith's outstanding sequel to Red Means Run, upstate New York farmer Virgil Cain lands a heavy metal cylinder while fishing in the Hudson. He secures...

The Operative.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Operative Andrew Britton. Kensington, $25 (400p) ISBN 978-0-7582-6351-3 Breakneck pacing compensates for lackluster prose in bestseller Britton's two-fisted fifth thriller featuring ex-CIA agent Ryan Kealey (after 2010's The Exile)....

The Last Refuge.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Last Refuge Ben Coes. St. Martin's, $25.99 (416p) ISBN 978-1-250-00715-5 Readers fond of unrealistic bravado and female intelligence operatives with outstanding physical assets will best appreciate Coes's third Dewey Andreas novel...

City of the Dead.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... City of the Dead Daniel Blake. S&S/Gallery, $25 (448p) ISBN 978-1-4391-9762-2 Set during the summer of 2005 as Hurricane Katrina approaches, this incendiary sequel to 2011's Thou Shalt Kill from the pseudonymous Blake (British author...

Criminal.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Criminal Karin Slaughter. Delacorte, $27 (448p) ISBN 978-0-345-52850-6 At the outset of Slaughter's tense fourth thriller to combine characters from her two crime series (after 2011's Fallen), life is running smoothly for agent Will Trent...

The Renegades.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... * The Renegades Torn Young. Putnam, $25.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-399-15846-9 Young's experience as a pilot in several war zones informs every line of his riveting third novel featuring Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Parson (after 2011's Silent...

Behold a Pale Horse: A Mystery of Ancient Ireland.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Behold a Pale Horse: A Mystery of Ancient Ireland Peter Tremayne. Minotaur, $25.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-312-65863-2 Tremayne's enjoyable 22nd seventh-century historical featuring Sister Fidelma (after 2011's The Chalice of Blood) is, despite...

PW talks with James Lee Burke: quixote in Louisiana.(Q&A)(Publishers Weekly)(Interview)
May 28, 2012... In James Lee Burke's Creole Belle (Reviews, May 21; pub. date, July), the New Iberia, La., deputy sheriff and his best friend, Clete Purcel, take on corrupt politicians, oil men, and a possible Nazi war criminal. Many of your books have had...

The Wurst Is Yet to Come.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Wurst Is Yet to Come Mary Daheim. Morrow, $23.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-208983-0 Daheim's cute 27th mystery featuring Seattle B&B owner Judith Flynn (after 2011's All the Pretty Little Hearses) takes Judith and her cousin Renie Jones...

The Sleeping and the Dead: A Jackie Lyons Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Sleeping and the Dead: A Jackie Lyons Mystery Jeff Crook. Minotaur, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-250-00028-6 Fantasy author Crook (Conundrum) introduces Jackie Lyons, a former Memphis PD vice detective battling self-destructive tendencies,...

The Sacrifice Game: Book II in the Sacrifice Game Trilogy.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Sacrifice Game: Book II in the Sacrifice Game Trilogy Brian D'Amato. Dutton, $29.95 (672p) ISBN 978-0-525-95241-1 The overly long second volume of D'Amato's apocalyptic trilogy (after 2009's Ln the Courts of the Sun) opens on a note of...

Invisible Country.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Invisible Country Annamaria Alfieri. Minotaur, $25.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-250-00453-6 The destruction of Paraguay in the 1860s by its three warring neighbors takes center stage in Alfieri's second South American historical (after 2009's City...

Broken Harbor.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... * Broken Harbor Tana French. Viking, $27.95 (464p) ISBN 978-0-670-02365-3 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Edgar-winner French's eloquently slow-burning fourth Dublin murder squad novel shows her at the top of her game. In a half-built luxury...

Whiplash River.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... * Whiplash River Lou Berney. Morrow, $14.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-06-211528-7 Berney takes his rightful place as heir to Elmore Leonard with this witty and nimble comedic thriller, a sequel to his first novel, Gunshot Straight...

Backfire.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Backfire Catherine Coulter. Putnam, $26.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-399-15732-5 Bestseller Coulter's overwrought 16th thriller featuring husband-and-wife FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock (after 2011's Split Second) pits the couple...

Flight from Berlin.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Flight from Berlin David John. Harper, $24.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-20916-7 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In British author John's intriguing debut, a historical set on the eve of the 1936 Olympic Games, socialite Eleanor Emerson accepts a...

A City of Broken Glass.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... A City of Broken Glass Rebecca Cantrell. Forge, $25.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2734-5 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The opening of Cantrell's gripping fourth novel featuring journalist Hannah Vogel (after 2011's A Game of Lies) finds Vogel and...

The Trust.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Trust Norb Vonnegut. Minotaur, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-250-00389-8 Vonnegut's engaging second Grove O'Rourke novel (after 2009's Top Producer) takes the Wall Street stockbroker to his hometown of Charleston, S.C., for the funeral of...

The Altered Case: A Hennessey and Yellich Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Altered Case: A Hennessey and Yellich Mystery Peter Turnbull. Severn, $28.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-7278-8154-0 In Turnbull's pleasantly old-school 22nd Vale of York police procedural (after 2010's Deliver Us from Evil), Det. Chief Insp....

The Portrait of Doreene Gray: A Chihuahua Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... The Portrait of Doreene Gray: A Chihuahua Mystery Esri Allbritten. Minotaur, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-56916-7 The three quirky main characters add an appealingly hip edge to the cozy core of Allbritten's sequel to 2011's Chihuahua of...

Isabel's Wedding.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Isabel's Wedding Pamela Oldfield. Severn, $28.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-7278-8151-9 Fans of Oldfield's previous period whodunits (The Boat House, etc.) shouldn't expect a strong mystery element in this average effort set in 1900 England. Isabel...

Death at Woods Hole: An Emily Cabot Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Death at Woods Hole: An Emily Cabot Mystery Frances McNamara. Allium (www.ailiumpress.com), $14.99 trade paper (220p) ISBN 978-0-9831938-3-8 Set after the Pullman strike of 1894 (chronicled in 2011's Death at Pullman), McNamara's overly...

Murdered by Nature.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Murdered by Nature Roderic Jeffries. Severn, $28.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-7278-8147-2 Jeffries, who's been turning out tart, snappy mysteries set in Majorca since 1974, shows no sign of losing steam in the 36th entry in his Inspector Alvarez...

Plotting at the PTA.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Plotting at the PTA Laura Alden. NAL/Obsidian, $7.99 mass market (320p) ISBN 978-0-451-23749-1 Bookstore owner, PTA secretary, and single mom Beth Kennedy has to fit a murder investigation or two into her schedule in Alden's enjoyable if...

Tarnished.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Tarnished Karina Cooper. Avon, $7.99 mass market (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-212764-8 Switching gears from the postapocalyptic setting of her Dark Mission series (All Things Wicked, etc.), Cooper's first St. Croix Chronicles steampunk urban...

This Dark Earth.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... This Dark Earth John Hornor Jacobs. S&S/Gallery, $15 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-4516-6666-3 Gus Ingersol is 14 and heir apparent to Bridge City, a fortified town in the mid-die of a zombie epidemic. His mother, Lucy, is a doctor and...

Sharps.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 28, 2012... Sharps K.J. Parker. Orbit, $15.99 trade paper (480p) ISBN 978-0-316-17775-7 On the surface, Parker's newest standalone, like the earlier Fencer Trilogy, is a ripping good adventure yarn, laced with frequent barbed witticisms and ace sword...