Magpies, a bleak Scottish castle, ghosts. Sounds like the backdrop for Macbeth, but this enchanting novel unfolds in 1925, when two blithe spirits—an older woman "who shone as if she had been dipped in silver" and a pig-tailed young girl—come to watch over 6-year-old Eva, whose mother died in childbirth. Visible only to Eva, the spirits annoyingly shuffle desks and chairs but straighten out Eva's world, serving as surrogate parents by guiding her through life's hard choices. What could dissolve into horror-movie cliché is instead an understated study of a woman's experience. As the older ghost explains about why the specter of Eva's own mother never appears, "In a way, she never left." (Holt, $23)
Bottom Line: Moving company
by Whitley Strieber
Miriam, the beautiful vampire from The Hunger, is back, and not just for blood. She wants to be a mom, but if she doesn't find an eligible daddy vampire soon, it may be too late: A squad of crack vampire killers is out to exterminate her kind. Still, she longs to do some necking with one of them, a CIA agent named Paul.
Some scenes are laughably contrived, but at least Strieber labels this book fiction, unlike Communion, the "true" story of his kidnapping by aliens. The ridiculous parts can be fun, though: Miriam runs a Goth dance club, and Paul frets that the government will label vampires an endangered species. Oddest of all, Miriam hints that she killed real-life magician Doug Henning. (Pocket, $24.95)
Bottom Line: Worth a bite
by Quincy Jones
It was Frank Sinatra who tagged Quincy Jones with his nickname. When the then-25-year-old Jones and O1' Blue Eyes first worked together in 1958—Jones conducted Sinatra's orchestra at a Monte Carlo concert—the singer shook Jones's hand afterward and said simply, "Yeah, nice job, Q."
The same might be said of Jones's richly anecdotal autobiography. He writes most vividly of his impoverished childhood in Chicago and Seattle and his early days as a jazz musician and arranger in the late '40s and '50s, when he shared a stage with Billie Holiday ("She was numbed out, totally unconscious from dope"), was scammed for drug money by saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker and had a brief fling with singer Dinah Washington.
The protean Jones, 68, also a composer, record (Thriller) and film (The Color Purple) producer and magazine publisher (Vibe), some-how found time to father seven children by five women (three of whom he wed, including Mod Squad actress Peggy Lipton). Looking over the past, he concludes, "I'm not sorry about much I've done in this life. I've lived it to the hilt and back." (Doubleday, $26)
Bottom Line: A well-orchestrated memoir
A Natural History of My Garden
by Diane Ackerman
It's a violent, larcenous world, ripe with provocateurs, exploitation, promiscuity and voyeurism. Some "will do anything, no matter how lethal, extreme or bizarre, to get other life-forms to perform sex for them." And it's all hidden beneath a sweet scent and an innocent blush.
The Dynasty Channel? No, your garden. This book is a fascinating tour of plant mythology and fact, from aster to zinnia. Without straying from her own Ithaca, N.Y., garden, Ackerman, an erudite Cornell University humanities professor, plays both sleuth and poet, complimenting Mother Nature on her beauty (winter is a spider, "spinning its white web in the trees") and power (spring races north at 47.6 feet per second) while uncovering her gifts for deceit (flower petals disguise themselves as the sex organs of female bees) and murder (passion-flower produces cyanide, which is released only when something bites into it). And oh, those raging appetites: "I don't mind Japanese beetles having sex on the roses; I just wish they wouldn't eat at the same time." (HarperCollins, $25)
Bottom Line: Hot as a pistil
by Karin Slaughter
Page-turner of the week
[
Sara Linton, the coroner of a tiny Georgia town, finds a young blind woman dying in the ladies' room of a diner. Not only does she have to perform the autopsy on the mutilated victim, Sara also has to work with her cheating ex, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver—a guy she'd hoped to avoid indefinitely—and the victim's twin sister, Lena, a no-nonsense cop.
Evidence from a second victim suggests the killer may be drugging his prey with belladonna to induce "blindsightedness," keeping them conscious but blurring their vision. All his targets are petite with brown hair—like Sara and Lena.
Slaughter's plot has more twists than a Slinky factory and the characters' relationships are sharply drawn. But the morbid violence (including a bizarre rape and a crucifixion) may dampen the thrills, unless you're the Marquis de Sade. (Morrow, $25.95)
Bottom Line: Crime for the cold-blooded
>As the mounting evidence demonstrates, these days if you're a celebrity who can speak, chances are you'll also want to write a children's book. But a sampling of titles for small fry shows that, with rare exceptions, stars should leave the kid lit to the pros.
Marsupial Sue by John Lithgow, illustrated by Jack E. Davis Lithgow of 3rd Rock from the Sun won critical acclaim and big sales for his first children's book, The Remarkable Farkle McBride, published last year. His second, the clever, rhyming tale of a misfit kangaroo who "hated the hopping that kangaroos do," charms as well. (Simon & Schuster, $17.95)
Just the Two of Us by Will Smith, illustrated by Kadir Nelson Expanding on the 1980 Grover Washington Jr. hit, Smith wrote and recorded this paean to the love between a father and a son in 1998. Three years later he has turned the song into a book that still offers little more than clunky prose ("That night I don't think one wink I slept") and schmaltz. (Scholastic, $16.95)
Olivia Saves the Circus by Ian Falconer The adorable, impish piglet from last year's critically acclaimed, bestselling Olivia returns. This time she's telling tales in school—claiming that when a local circus crew was felled by ear infections, she performed all their acts. The quirky drawings alone are worth the price. (Atheneum, $16)
Brooklyn Bridge by Lynn Curlee With the World Trade Center's Twin Towers gone, this gloriously illustrated history of the 1870-83 construction of another skyscraping New York landmark, known then as the "eighth wonder of the world," arrives at an especially welcome moment. (Atheneum, $18)
Rock Steady, A Story of Noah's Ark by Sting, illustrated by Hugh Whyte The illustrations are bright and appealing, but the words, borrowed from Sting's 1987 song of the same name, fall flat without music. All proceeds benefit the Rainforest Foundation, a group Sting cofounded. (HarperCollins, $16.95)
- Contributors:
- Erica Sanders,
- Todd Seavey,
- Leah Rozen,
- Andrea Higbie,
- Edward Karam,
- Kim Hubbard.
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!
