Brief reviews, December 30

Peter Mergendahl, Jane Dickinson, Mark Graham & Natalie Soto, Special to the News

Published December 30, 2005 at midnight

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THRILLERS

The Berlin Conspiracy

By Tom Gabbay (William Morrow, $24.95)

Grade: A

If you're wondering what to do with that gift card from a bookstore you just received, I suggest newcomer Tom Gabbay's first book. It's the perfect antidote to the mid-winter blahs, combining the secret Cold War world of John Le Carre with the fast-paced paranoia and violence of Robert Ludlum - a spy novel of the first rank.

Set in 1963, the story covers five days in Berlin in the summer of that year. Jack Teller, disillusioned by the Bay of Pigs fiasco, has retired from the CIA. Now he lives on the beach in Florida where he is writing a bad novel and fishing even worse. Teller had left Germany as a young boy in 1927. Now he's being called back by the Agency because someone behind the Iron Curtain is asking for Jack Teller in person. Apparently, they have important information they will only give to him.

Reluctantly, he flies to Berlin. Things don't go well at first as the local spooks insist on shadowing Teller as he attempts a meeting with the mystery man. Eventually, though, Teller manages to elude his handlers and make contact with an East German colonel in Intelligence.

The information he gives to Teller is too much to believe. It seems there's a plot to kill President Kennedy during his visit to Berlin in only a few days. Teller is also told that the plot is coming from the CIA, which is planning to blame the Communists for the assassination.

Teller dutifully tells his former boss what he has learned and is told to forget such crazy tales. But Teller knows what the CIA thinks of Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, and he realizes what might sound absurd to normal people is precisely the kind of thing others might think up.

Now Teller is on his own in a foreign city, trying to track down killers that are after him too. His only ally appears to be the enemy.

Using Kennedy conspiracy theories may not be a new plot device, but Gabbay tells such an engaging and fast-paced tale it doesn't matter. Add a new and adept name to the must-read list of thriller writers.

Peter Mergendahl

MYSTERY

Pardonable Lies

By Jacqueline Winspear (Holt, $23)

Grade: A-

Jacqueline Winspear's mysteries featuring Maisie Dobbs have won readers and critics from the start, with an Edgar nomination and many other awards.

Pardonable Lies, the third book in the series, continues the story of Maisie, who served as a nurse through the horrors of World War I. Twelve years later, she runs her own business as an investigator in touch with the supernatural as well as a practitioner of the young science of psychology.

Winspear sets up a complex plot, opening with a 12- or 13-year-old streetwalker suspected of murder whom Maisie hopes to help. To this end, she works out a deal with another client. Maisie takes the case of a father who promised his dying wife he would look for their aviator son, even though he was declared dead after his plane crashed and burned during the war. In return for this favor, the father, a prominent lawyer, agrees to defend the streetwalker. Maisie also honors a good friend's wish to know more about the fate of her brother, another victim of the war.

The book bogs down a bit before the story gets its legs, perhaps because there's so much groundwork to lay. And the formal tone of the series, which perfectly fits the era, sometimes gets in the way of the dialogue and the progress of the plot. Every telephone call, every greeting, seems to get the full treatment of pleasantries when a novelistic shorthand would do.

But things pick up as Maisie's investigations place her in jeopardy. She heads to France for the first time since the war to face down her memories as well as look for the truth. But someone doesn't want her to find it, and danger lurks around every corner.

Winspear twists the suspense to a high pitch in this dark and moody tale that will please newcomers to the series, as well as Winspear's many fans.

Jane Dickinson

UNREAL WORLDS

Coyote Frontier

By Allen Steele (Ace, $24.95)

Grade: A

Coyote Frontier is the third book in Allen Steele's Coyote trilogy. Miraculously, the book is nearly as good a stand-alone novel as it is the conclusion of the best space colonization saga to come along in decades. Steele has included just the right amount of back story in the narrative so that new readers will understand the plot, yet not so much as to annoy readers of the first two installments. I don't know how he did it; I just know it works.

Also of interest is the fact that most of Coyote (2002) and Coyote Rising (2004) first appeared as a series of episodes in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. Coyote Frontier takes what the author calls "the same mosaic form," but "everything in the new novel is completely new, and hasn't been previously published."

In the first book, after the U.S. government has disintegrated, rebel intellectuals make a 250-year journey to a moon orbiting a gas giant at 47 Ursae Majoris and begin a new life.

In the second book, five more space ships arrive and attempt a military takeover to establish a government like the one the original colonists escaped from. The residents of Coyote rebel and take back their home.

In Coyote Frontier, some time has passed, and earth scientists have perfected a "star bridge" which will enable instantaneous travel across the galaxy. Because of ecological disasters, Earth is dying, and to those wealthy enough to afford the cost of travel, Coyote seems like a new Eden.

There's room for more people. But allowing them to come has certain drawbacks, including the possible destruction of indigenous life, differences of religion and government, and the possibility that the same ecological catastrophes that have befallen their home planet will recur. On the other hand, the technology that the residents of Coyote brought with them is wearing out and, to continue their present lifestyle, they need replacements.

The questions are: Can an equitable trade agreement be reached? Can the members of the United Nations be trusted to keep their end of the bargain?

Steele does a satisfactory job of answering those questions and wrapping up the trilogy. But as he told me in a recent interview, "I'm not entirely done with this world. I've written two stand-alone Coyote stories since then, and have another that I'll eventually get around to completing. As well, the novel I'm currently writing, Spindrift, takes place in the same universe."

I can guarantee you I'll be reading that one, because Coyote is a place I'm not ready to leave.

Mark Graham

CHILDREN

Fancy Nancy

By Jane O'Connor (HarperCollins, $15.99, ages 4-7)

Grade: A-

No one knows fancy like Nancy, and she sets about gussying up her family in this fun and heartwarming book that ends beautifully.

Nancy loves being fancy: Her favorite color is fuschia ("a fancy way of saying purple"), she writes with a plumed pen ("a fancy way of saying feathers"), and she can't wait to learn French "because everything in French sounds fancy." But no one else in her family, not even her little sister, is fancy. "They never even ask for sprinkles." So she posts a sign for fancy lessons on her fridge and gets three takers: her mom, dad and sister.

The illustrations by Robin Preiss Glasser are always highly detailed, and this book is no exception. She added lots of fun details to show Nancy's flair for bling-bling. In her lessons to her family, Nancy writes on a dry-erase board that the fancy words for "yellow," "leather" and "glasses" would be "gold," "patent leather" and "sunglasses."

Her family sweetly goes along with the extra-fussy Nancy and even wear their new get-ups to The King's Crown diner. Over pizza, Nancy is proud to see her family eat with their pinkies up and ask for parfaits (that's fancy French for "ice cream").

When Nancy has a fancy faux pas, her family cheers her up at home. But it's at bedtime that Nancy admits that the best way to say "I love you" is the plain way.

Young fashionistas will love Nancy. And their parents will, too, because, while Nancy is highly stylish and self-assured, she's not sassy or rude like other fictional princess-like girls.

Natalie Soto

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