MYSTERY
When Sue Grafton inaugurated her alphabetically titled crime series in 1982, her heroine, Kinsey Millhone, was almost a detective cliché—a tough loner, unlucky in love, who surrounded herself with a makeshift family of misfits.
In the 18th Millhone novel, R is for Ricochet, the heroine's disconnection and routine seem tinged with sadness: Will she ever get a life? Grafton highlights Millhone's alienation by teaming her with reckless parolee Reba Lafferty, a wild-child gambling addict and relentless schemer. Millhone has been hired to escort Reba from prison, but she unwittingly gets sucked into a screwball plot that Reba has hatched to get the goods on a scurrilous ex-lover who let her go to jail for his financial shenanigans. An engaging romp ensues as the parolee and the slightly priggish detective bond over girl stuff, including makeovers and breaking and entering.
Grafton has always known how to craft a compelling plot, but Ricochet is lighter on its feet than her previous novels. Her dialogue is deliciously zingy and Reba is a marvelous character, one so bursting with life that it's no wonder she inspires Millhone to let her hair down a little.
By Bryan Burrough
NONFICTIOn
CRITIC'S CHOICE
The names may mean little to readers under 40, but Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly and their cronies created the template for Hollywood gangsters. For 600 days between 1933 and 1934, these flamboyant crooks fascinated America with bank robberies and high-profile kidnappings in what was to be called the Great Crime Wave. On their trail were the G-men of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, known as much for "the crisp parts in their oiled hair," in Burrough's words, as their skills in fighting crime. Arguing that over the years characters on both sides of the law have been invested with a "cuddly likeability they did not possess," the author reconciles reality with myth by offering 550 pages of often minute-by-minute accounts detailing audacious criminal exploits and FBI bungles. From John Dillinger's prison breaks (including one using a wooden gun) to Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-riddled deaths (the police leveled 150 shots at them), the true stories that com prise Burrough's riveting book surpass most novels for attention-grabbing action.
By Julian Barnes
SHORT STORIES
Julian Barnes is feeling old, and you will be too by the time you finish his new collection of short fiction. Each tale turns on the "battle against the tabooing of death," as a nursing home inmate puts it in "Knowing French," a story told through characters' correspondence. Barnes describes the realities of aging with precision and a knack for matching narrative device to psychological reality: Three haircuts over a lifetime mark the transit of one man's vanity and self-confidence, and the inner monologue of a cantankerous concertgoer obsessed by coughing and candy wrappers depicts a petty fixation spiraling toward violence. Stories that map the disjointed patterns of a calcifying mind are juxtaposed with others told from the point of view of the not-yet-old. Rattled by his father's late-life infidelity, a son reconsiders their tidy suburban past: "Behind my father's reticence and winks ... was there panic and mortal terror? Or is this a stupid question? Is anyone spared mortal terror?" Barnes takes that question straight on in this brave, well-crafted book.
By Anthony Capella
NOVEL
First-time novelist Capella creates a charming romance in this modern take on Cyrano de Bergerac. Shy Bruno, a chef at a snooty Roman restaurant, has a crush on an American student, Laura. Ruthless roommate Tommaso decides to woo the girl by posing as a chef and having Bruno create seductive feasts. The fun begins when Chef Tommaso's feats become the talk of Rome. Evoking the sights, smells and flavors of Italy in sensuous prose, this lively book also features recipes for readers eager to create (or just dream about) Bruno's food of amore.
Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class
By Larry Tye
HISTORY
Ever made a bed aboard a moving train? In the century before the civil rights movement, that and other menial chores were performed by African-American men, usually Southerners, hired by the Pullman Company to serve white passengers in sleeper cars. Deferential to customers yet managing, as one ex-porter told Tye, to "look, listen and learn," the men organized in 1925 to form the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters—the first black union admitted into the powerful American Federation of Labor. Thorough yet never dull, Tye, a longtime reporter for The Boston Globe, casts his subjects with honor and dignity. He weaves their stories together with those of paternalistic mogul George Pullman and black union activist A. Philip Randolph, fleshing out the history of a labor movement that set the stage for 1963's March on Washington.
By Allison Lynn
NOVEL
Set among New York's competitive media elite, Lynn's debut novel is part detective story, part cautionary tale. Young and in love, David and Jessica have an enviable life-until David returns from a trip to find his wife missing. Jessica's keys and wallet have been left behind, and there is no evidence of a struggle; in fact, there's no evidence at all.
Though Lynn is a keen observer with a fluid prose style, Now You See It is short on suspense. But it succeeds in its larger goal: to remind us to slow down and appreciate what's truly ours.
Pamela Anderson
Featuring a foldout nude photo of the author herself, Anderson's first novel, Star, follows the fortunes of a smalltown girl turned sex symbol.
ON BECOMING A MOVELIST [Publishers] Simon & Schuster came up with the idea, actually. They said, "Do you know what a roman a clef is?" I go, "Who's that?" They said, "Something inspired by your life." So I started writing.
HER SECRET PASSION When I was young, I wrote. My parents always thought I would be a writer or a photographer, not an actress or a model. [Years later] I started writing columns [on lifestyle and body image] for Jane and Marie Claire. I can sit down in the hair-and-make-up chair and a topic will come up and I'll write it out on a legal pad. Poor grammar and everything's bad, but I send it in and they fix it.
HELP FROM HER FRIENDS? Obviously a book is a whole different animal. [My publishers] said, "We're going to set you up with someone to help you with the structure." I think people will understand it's my voice.
ON WRITING HER LIFE It was fun to relive, coming to L.A. from a small Canadian town, stepping into a Playboy studio. Like [the protagonist] Star, I had never been on a plane before I came to L.A., and I was always curious what "LAX" meant.
FAST LANE How long did it take me to write the book? To tell you the truth, a month.
WHAT SHE LEARNED FROM LOOKING BACK I saw that I was pretty naive in the beginning. And I survived it.
ON FACING THE CRITICS Hopefully it's just an enjoyable summer read. It's not F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I'm really proud of it. I'm really excited about it because it's fun and it's very me.
- Contributors:
- Arion Berger,
- Edward Nawotkal,
- Lee Aitken,
- Bella Stander,
- V.R. Peterson,
- Margaux Wexberg.
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!
