by Charles Chadwick
CRITIC'S CHOICE
First-time author Charles Chadwick, 72, took 28 years to complete It's All Right Now, writing on the weekends while working full time as a British civil servant. The result is a novel in the form of a journal kept by a perceptive and hilariously unguarded middle-class Brit, Tom Ripple, who decides to simply record his thoughts about the world around him. "I'm not sure what the point of this is," Ripple writes at the beginning. "We shall have to see. It may take quite a time." That's for sure. The book is nearly 700 pages and spans decades. But by the time it's over, Chadwick has caringly laid bare the mind of a surprisingly decent chump who has a remarkable capacity to do the right thing despite himself.
Ripple isn't the kind of hero you typically find in fiction. He holds a drab job in "information retrieval" and speaks to his kids using bad puns. His journal consists of little but people coming and going, new homes, doctor's visits, political conversations, a few deaths, a divorce and one false-start romance. What raises it above the mundane is Ripple's voice. He's snidely funny and shamelessly open, a gabby tour guide who steals the show. So plan to read this book the way Ripple lives: in no rush. His experiences slowly build on each other until you get a vivid picture of how one unfashionable, terribly pun-ny man can end up touching the lives around him, including the readers' own.
FICTION
by Elizabeth Kostova
Turns out that Dracula isn't the tuxedo-wearing virgin-slayer Bela Lugosi made famous. According to Kostova, the legendary figure based on the medieval ruler Vlad the Impaler was more scholar than killer. Kostova's debut, set in 1972, is the story of a young woman in Amsterdam who discovers cryptic letters and an ancient book in her father's library. When pressed, he tells her about his grad-school days, the disappearance of his thesis adviser and the strange man-hunt that led him behind the Iron Curtain—and, eventually, to proof of the undead. Kostova's novel falters under ponderous language and inept efforts at suspense. The vampires are few, and they tend to be archivists, not predatory nobles. "As I knew I could not attain a heavenly paradise...I became an historian in order to preserve my own history forever," says Dracula. An original take, sure, but it's too bad that the monster at the heart of the novel turns out to be a bore.
NONFICTION
by Tim Brookes
In 2002, after Brookes's beloved guitar was smashed by baggage handlers, the NPR commentator and musician set out to have a new one built. He also began to piece together this historical ode to the guitar. Writing about each painstaking step in the creation of his $3,000 instrument by a skilled luthier, he punctuates the narrative with great moments: The first acknowledged steel guitar player, for example, was Hawaiian Joseph Kekuku, an 11-year-old who, in 1885, picked up a steel bolt from a railroad track and slid it across his strings. "Part history, part love song," in Brookes's words, Guitar strikes just the right chords.
NOVEL
by Rachel Pine
Formerly a publicist at Miramax, Pine has conjured up a workplace-revenge novel in the spirit of The Devil Wears Prada—this one set in a snake pit of a movie studio run by twins Phil and Tony Waxman. Pine's comic timing and insider perspective are her strengths: The fun is trying to figure out who's who and what's true, a task made easy when she skewers the likes of Ronald Ululater, "a European former bodybuilder" and star of countless action films. The story eventually flags, but those hooked on the guessing game won't notice.
Thrillers
HOURS OF THE CAT by Peter Quinn Noir to the core: In New York City before World War II, hard-boiled detective Fintan Dunne races the clock to solve a murder mystery linked to the looming genocide in the Europe. Smart and evocative.
DEVIL'S CORNER by Lisa Scottoline In her expertly crafted 12th novel, the former lawyer creates feisty new heroines (a prosecutor and her street-smart partner), pitting them against a menacing drug gang.
TWO TRAINS RUNNING by Andrew Vachss Set in a decaying small town in the 1960s, this gritty, absorbing novel (Vachss's 19th) features lots of tough-talking lowlifes cruising around in flashy sedans.
FIRE SALE by Sara Paretsky In her latest V. I. Warshawski caper Paretsky takes her tough-but-tender detective back to her old neighborhood to crack a compelling case. Snappy and satisfying, as always.
WORDS OF WISDOM
A Father's Advice
In Boys Will Put You on a Pedestal (So They Can Look Up Your Skirt), written for his two daughters, hands-on dad Philip van Munching shares his advice on life and love. Some of his top hints:
•PUBERTY It's freaky thing, watching your on body develop. You'll go through a few years where it's just going to be a little weird. But if you focus only on your looks you'll wind up attracting people who are also focused on your looks, and probably on their own.
•BOYS AND DATING If they take you for granted, dump 'em. If they try to pressure you into doing something you don't want to do, dump 'em. If they ever touch you in a way that isn't invited and affectionate, dump 'em.
•DEALING WITH "MEAN GIRLS" Understand that the person doing the bullying is miserable and insecure. Then just be really, really glad you're not her.
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