FOOLISH UNDERTAKING

MARK DE CASTRIQUE

Poisoned Pen Press HC 02/06

In Gainesboro, a small mountain community in North Carolina, Barry Clayton had to give up a promising career elsewhere when he was needed instead at the family business, Clayton and Clayton Funeral Directors.

The Minotaur by Barbara Vine
Shaye Areheart, March 2006
ISBN 0-307-23760-5
Hardcover

The irrepressibly prolific and consistently impressive writer Barbara Vine (a.k.a. Ruth Rendell)—“the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world” (Time) and “a writer who is at the height of her powers” (Daily Mail)—has now given readers one of her most disturbing and provocative mysteries, The Minotaur.

First, let us consider the name that serves as the title of Barbara Vine’s mesmerizing novel: The Minotaur of ancient Greek mythology, as readers will recall, was an unpleasant creature with a bull’s head and man’s body.

The Limehouse Text by Will Thomas
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, July 2006
ISBN 0-7432-7334-6
Hardcover

It is early February in 1885, and the narrator of The Limehouse Text, Thomas Llewelyn, has been employed for nearly a year by Cyrus Barker, London’s singularly resourceful private enquiry agent.

A Sound Like Thunder
By Sonny Brewer
Ballantine, 288 pages
ISBN 0-345-47633-6

Returning to Fairhope, Alabama, the setting for his praiseworthy The Poet of Tolstoy Park, Sonny Brewer’s commendable new lyrical novel features Rove MacNee, who navigates through memoir and memory, recalling his youth on the eve of World War II.

Passionate about cast-net-fishing, sailing, and books—by Emerson, Twain, and Whitman—sixteen-year-old Rove in late 1941 finds himself overwhelmed by problems.

Tilt A Whirl
By Chris Grabenstein
Carroll & Graf / Avalon

In the seaside resort community of Sea Haven, New Jersey, the police don’t have much to do. John Ceepak, formerly a military policeman with a thirteen year career in the Army, has recently been hired as Sea Haven’s new chief of police.