Something is rotten on the good ship Sirius. And the designer-clad corpse decaying in the hold under a scrawled graffiti declaration, Bon voyage, le loup garou—French for "Have a nice trip, werewolf"—is only the beginning, as Dr. Kay Scarpetta discovers in this brainteasing mystery. Getting to the bottom of it will take Virginia's chief medical examiner from Richmond to Paris's Rue de Rivoli as she tracks one of the most savage killers of her career.
Don't let the word "werewolf" spook you. Despite its eerie overtones, Cornwell keeps her story on the solid forensic ground her readers have come to expect. More problematic than any flights of fancy are a few fits and starts of the plot, which never does achieve the flash point of last year's arson-themed Point of Origin. But with its intriguing premise, notably restrained writing and, oh, yes, the promise of a new romance for the long-suffering Scarpetta, Black Notice is indeed worthy of attention. (Putnam, $25.95)
Bottom Line: Hair-raising tale with a French twist
by Nicci French
Beach book of the week
Their eyes meet across a crowded London street. A few hours later, when Alice Loudon emerges from the office where she works as a research scientist, he is still there. And instead of doing the sensible thing, she finds herself sliding into a cab with this handsome stranger, embarking on an obsessive, at times violent affair that threatens to consume life as she knows it—if it doesn't kill her first.
In lesser hands than those of Nicci French—pen name for the British husband-and-wife team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who have previously collaborated on two bestsellers in the U.K.—the story of Alice and her increasingly dark suspicions about her mountain-climbing mystery man could easily degenerate into a bodice-ripper. But instead, the authors' sleek prose and convincing characters make for a compulsive read as we shadow Alice on a perilous voyage of discovery. (Warner, $24)
Bottom Line: Peak psychological suspense
by Derek Lundy
Call me Landlubber.
But those of us who don't know the difference between a spinnaker and a spinet must be forgiven for not always sympathizing, as Derek Lundy does uncritically, with privileged sportsmen who freely choose to sail through fiercely dangerous seas.
Godforsaken Sea is an account of a harrowing 1996-97 around-the-world solo sailing race that began and finished at Les Sables d'Olonne, France. The race involved drama, most of it transpiring while the boats were in the storm-racked Southern Ocean—a treacherous expanse linked by the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans.
But despite a miraculous rescue, a missing sailor and heated competition among the race leaders, the tension is all too abbreviated. The race spreads out over thousands of miles, and Lundy thins the narrative by interrupting his chronology for long digressions on psychology and the minutiae of boat-building. Lundy, a lawyer who is also an amateur sailor, rarely defines his nautical terms, so it's often hard to understand what's happening, let alone what really motivates the people who have placed themselves in harm's way. (Algonquin, $22.95)
Bottom Line: No threat to Melville, or even Walter Cronkite
by Mark Caldwell
"Attitude" has replaced civility. "Doing your own thing" has replaced doing unto others. "Road rage" has replaced right of way. To some people, this is the Age of Computers. To literary critic Caldwell, it is the Age of the Breakdown of Common Courtesy. Yet the current obsession with the rising tide of vulgarity, he points out, is nothing new: "Americans have undergone periodic anxiety over their manners since the dawn of the republic."
Ironically, Caldwell himself occasionally lapses into questionable taste (e.g., an extended discussion on the niceties of flatulence). Worse, he deals with the effects of social class on manners but largely ignores the impact of the do-your-own-thing selfishness of the '60s and beyond, the smugness of political correctness and the celebration of "in your face" behavior. While his book admirably calls attention to a troubling aspect of the American culture, it does so with surprisingly little passion. In the end, rudeness doesn't seem to bother him all that much. (Picador, $23)
Bottom Line: Too nice, waffling analysis of a worrisome trend
by Kathryn Bernheimer
The funniest movie of all time, of course, is The Thing with Two Heads, a 1972 horror film featuring Ray Milland's head spliced onto Rosey Grier's body. But that movie wasn't supposed to be funny, so Bernheimer, a Denver critic, can be excused for omitting it from her admirable, if stodgy, compilation.
It's hard to find fault with her first choice, Some Like It Hot. But the rest of her canon dutifully includes films nobody watches anymore (City Lights, The General), and she grievously omits the Bob Hope movies and all of Mel Brooks's except The Producers in favor of such lame choices as The Full Monty, When Harry Met Sally...and Raising Arizona. Lamentably there is only one Marx Brothers film (Duck Soup), but that oversight is balanced by the commendable lack of any Jim Carrey, Chevy Chase or Adam Sandler films. The writing here is all too dry, but the best part of books such as these is that they serve as starting points for good arguments. Let the popcorn fly. (Citadel, $16.95)
Bottom Line: Good fun, but how could she possibly have overlooked...?
by Lauren Belfer
Buffalo may not strike you as the likeliest setting for a historical novel of high intrigue, but Lauren Belfer makes the city seem as cosmopolitan as Vienna and as mysterious as Marrakech. Set in 1901, the year of the Pan-American Exposition, City of Light views Buffalo's robber barons and rabble-rousers, genteel do-gooders and radical conservationists, its passionate feminists and determined advocates of racial equality through the eyes of Louisa Barrett. She is the self-assured headmistress of a girls' school and doyenne of a glittering salon that includes the city's most powerful citizens. Two suspicious deaths connected with the local electric power plant lead to a series of discoveries about a plot to divert the waters of the Niagara River—and to a chain of events that threatens to spill open the shameful secrets of Louisa's past. Despite some far-fetched plot turns, this ambitious, cleanly written novel keeps the reader's attention firmly focused on its well-drawn characters' personal dramas—and their struggle to save the grandeur of Niagara Falls. (Dial, $24.95)
Bottom Line: Suspenseful historical novel
>Bob Woodward
Muckraker Bob Woodward, the intrepid reporter portrayed by Robert Redford in All the President's Men, is a connoisseur of Capital crimes and indiscretions. But Bill Clinton's recent troubles took even the celebrated chronicler of Watergate by surprise. "I never expected another impeachment investigation of a President in my lifetime, let alone an actual impeachment," he writes.
In his new book, Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate, Woodward, 56, explores Richard Nixon's impact on his five successors, concluding that each failed to grasp fully the new standards of accountability under which hedging and deception—in matters from Iran-Contra to marital infidelity—are no longer acceptable. None of these men, he says, "had figured a way to talk early and directly about troubles or inquiries." In one telling chapter, Woodward, who lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, reporter Elsa Walsh, 41, and daughter Diana, 3, describes a distraught Hillary Clinton on Martha's Vineyard days after her husband finally acknowledged his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Says Woodward: "I wanted very much to get to the inner life and the emotional toll that these investigations take."
- Contributors:
- Pam Lambert,
- Ralph Novak,
- Francine Prose,
- Margery Sellinger.
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!
