Get ready to set sail on a ship of fools only Dave Barry could skipper—a floating casino named the Extravaganza of the Seas, inhabited by a motley mix of gangsters, fun-loving seniors, a wedding band named Johnny and the Contusions, and an array of other misfits, all hoping to turn their lives around and finally beat the house. Except this night's voyage promises to be rougher than usual, as a storm roils the waters and a Mob war breaks out during a rendezvous with drug runners.
Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist, proves again that his penchant for punchy prose and comic observations is perfectly suited to fiction. Occasionally the action stalls, when he accidentally reverts to a style that sounds as if he's back writing a column. However, the fast pace and fun easily outweigh such minor mechanical issues. Even if you don't like to laugh, buy it for Barry's foolproof method of testing the freshness of cruise-ship buffets.
Bottom Line: Bet on it
By Donna Tartt
Robin Cleve Dufresnes was 9 when he was hanged from a tree in his own yard. Twelve years later, the murder still unsolved, his younger sister Harriet embarks on a quest to find his killer and exact revenge. A precocious 12-year-old who has grown up in the shadow of Robin's death, Harriet soon learns that in the adult world things are rarely simple.
Like The Secret History, Tartt's acclaimed 1992 debut, this eagerly anticipated second novel muses on morality and murderous impulses. Set in Mississippi in the 1970s, it is a dark tale of lost innocence populated by a cast of characters that would make Flannery O'Connor proud. Among them: Harriet's great-aunts, flighty but loving spinsters who stand in for her perpetually doped-up mother, and the ne'er-do-well Ratliff brothers, led by Danny, a psychotic methamphetamine addict.
The prologue, detailing the day of Robin's death, is the novel's shining moment. The rest, unfortunately, never achieves the same pitch. This is an emotionally sophisticated book, but it can't decide whether to be a thriller or a coming-of-age story. With fine-tuning it could have been both. (Knopf, $26)
Bottom Line: A glorious mess
By Maeve Binchy
As this otherwise engaging novel gets under way, the temptation to smack heroine Ella Brady for being a simpering idiot—or eejit, as she and her Dublin pals would say—is overwhelming. Actually it's Binchy who deserves a scolding for expecting readers to buy Brady's transformation from level-headed career woman to lovestruck doormat within hours of meeting a slimy married man. And yet by the time the expected happens (he's a cad who dumps Ella), master storyteller Binchy has her hooks deep into the reader.
Much of the action occurs in and around a Dublin restaurant named Quentins. Stringing together stories about the people who make the restaurant a success allows Binchy to craft tidy vignettes about decent, hardworking middle-class folk. Characters from earlier Binchy bestsellers return for cameo appearances, like old friends popping in. Binchy excels at happy endings, but here she proves to be just as adept at mystery, making readers wait until the very end to learn whether Ella will make the right choice. (Dutton, $25.95)
Bottom Line: Corned beef and cabbage for the soul
By Edna Buchanan
Page-turner of the week
There's a distinct chill in the Florida air in this latest fast-paced mystery starring Miami newspaper reporter Britt Montero. K.C. Riley, head of Miami's Cold Case Squad, is unhappy that Montero is writing about the 14-year-old unsolved case of Sunny Hartley. Montero, for her part, suspects that the man of her dreams, police Maj. Kendall McDonald, is sleeping with Riley. Neither, of course, will admit that personal grievances could ever effect their professional performance.
Sunny Hartley, the emotionally remote ice maiden of the title, is newsworthy because when she was 16, out on her first date, she was raped, shot and left for dead. After crawling to safety, she made a new life as an ice sculptor. Years later Montero discovers a clue that reopens the case, putting Sunny's life in peril. That, in turn, drags Riley and her squad, which uses modern technology and old-fashioned detective work to crack long-ago cases, into the hunt. After covering 3,000 real-life homicides, Buchanan, a Pulitzer-winning ex-Miami Herald reporter, knows her crime scene: the cops, journalists, perps and witnesses; the hairpin drive of high-speed deduction. Some writers can outplot Buchanan, but nobody beats her for sass and realism. (Morrow, $23.95)
Bottom Line: Criminally entertaining
By Dave Eggers
If Holden Caulfield had been a child of the frequent-flyer era, he would have found fellow travelers in Will and Hand, the buddies Eggers sends ping-ponging around the globe in this fictional follow-up to A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers's 2000 memoir. Their mission: to rid themselves of a $38,000 windfall by helping needy locals. From Senegal to Estonia, their comic antics—such as trying to tape money to livestock—float on an undercurrent of tragedy. The two are reeling from the death of a friend, and Will is about to snap. Eggers's prose veers between sublime and self-indulgent, but, as in any trip, the moments of beauty are worth some slogging. (McSweeney's, $22)
Bottom Line: A bumpy ride but worthwhile
- Contributors:
- Sean Gannon,
- Michelle Vellucci,
- Debby Waldman,
- Tim Appelo,
- Samantha Miller.
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!
