March may be the cruelest month for Tempe Brennan. As a forensic anthropologist—one of the tiny band whose facility with skeletal remains helps coroners solve particularly baffling cases—death is a part of her life. But even so, the five corpses she is called to examine at a torched Quebec farmhouse—among them the mutilated, doll-size bodies of a pair of 4-month-old twins—are enough to give her the willies.
Before Brennan can complete her analysis for homicide detective Andrew Ryan, the blue-eyed charmer she alternately loathes and lusts after, her expertise is needed in another, possibly related, case. And then another. And the more she and Ryan discover about the growing circle of victims, the greater risk they run of sharing their grisly fate.
As she did in her knockout 1997 debut, Déjà Dead, Reichs taps into her own expertise as a forensic anthropologist to bring a unique perspective to her story of madness and murder. More important, she knows how to spin an atmospheric, suspensefully paced yarn, one that is likely to leave you with the shivers of an ice storm on Quebec's haunted Plains of Abraham. (Scribner, $25)
Bottom Line: Bone-chilling prime crime
by Danielle Steel
Beach book of the week
Cranking out two to three books a year doesn't leave Danielle Steel a lot of time for research. Which is probably why her latest book—set in czarist Russia—so often feels as if it could as easily be taking place in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Fortunately for Steel, readers come to her for romance, not realism. On that, she delivers. The book is framed by an unnamed narrator reflecting on her recently deceased grandmother, a woman she adored but knew only as a cookie-baking old woman. Then a box of her Granny Dan's mementos leads her to discover the drama-filled life of Danina Petroskova, a beautiful prima ballerina who finds passion and tragedy when she falls in love with the Czar's family doctor on the eve of the Russian Revolution.
As the assassination of the Czar and his family nears, Steel pulls out all the emotional stops. And if Granny Dan is no Dr. Zhivago, you'd have to be as cold as a snow-covered Omar Sharif not to be moved. (Delacorte, $19.95)
Bottom Line: Even Lenin would be touched
A Memoir of a Texas Childhood
by Horton Foote
Early in these reminiscences of Depression-era Texas, the playwright and veteran screenwriter of Oscar winners To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies boasts of his father: "There were topics he would hold forth on for hours." The magnolia blossoms do not fall far from the tree. Foote's topic is his boyhood in a "tiny, dwindling town" near Houston. While his dry style saves him from folksiness, it also parches his rendering of southern stereotypes—the beauty who becomes the town eccentric, the inept scions who squander the family name and fortune. This latest addition to the long shelf of southern literary autobiography ends with 16-year-old Foote leaving Texas on the obligatory bus, heading for Pasadena, Calif., to become an actor, leaving most readers happy to say goodbye to Farewell. (Scribner, $24)
Bottom Line: Hollywood writer's tedium vitae
by Eileen Fulton
During her 40 years on As the World Turns, Eileen Fulton's constantly scheming character, Lisa Miller, has been married eight times, widowed, raped, held hostage and nearly killed. All of which Fulton puts entertainingly to use in her first romance novel, set on the fictional soap Another Life.
At the center of the drama is sweet Amanda Baker, who moves to New York City after being left at the altar. Landing a role on the soap, she finds herself up against jealous costars, bullying directors and a megalomaniacal producer with more than her career on his mind. Naturally she also falls madly in love—while trying to conceal a secret from her past.
Packed with enough melodrama to keep a real soap bubbling for months, the novel careens from one cliffhanger to the next. And while the ending is never in doubt, you'll wish you could tune back in long after the last page has been turned. (St. Martin's, $23.95)
Bottom Line: Frothy fun
>LOCAL GIRLS Alice Hoffman
From the author of Practical Magic, a series of stories on how four Long Island, N.Y., women—mother, daughter, daughter's cousin and friend—navigate family bonds, binds and betrayals. (Putnam, $22.95)
LIVE NOW, AGE LATER Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D. Pointing to golden-oldie dynamos like Sean Connery and Sen. John Glenn, a seasoned physician explains how good habits, healthy diet and the right medical care can keep you youthful and energetic. (Warner, $24)
WE'LL MEET AGAIN Mary Higgins Clark The bestselling author returns with a knuckle-biting mystery about murder, suicide, revenge and other low deeds among the swells of Greenwich, Conn. (Simon & Schuster, $25)
- Contributors:
- Pam Lambert,
- Cynthia Sanz,
- Harry Bauld.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
