Brief reviews, May 12

Peter Mergendahl, Jane Dickinson, Jennifer Miller & Mark Graham, Special to the News

Published May 12, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Books

More stories »

THRILLERS

The King of Lies

By John Hart (St. Martin's, $22.95).

Grade: A

A plethora of books by bestselling authors will arrive in the coming weeks, and you'll be seeing their titles everywhere. It's like movies. If someone pays millions to make a movie like Pirates of the Caribbean 2, they're going to spend millions to make sure you go to see it.

But no one is paying me big bucks to schlep a book or a movie to you, so take my word when I tell you that if you want entertainment that will ensnare you, deprive you of sleep and have you button-holing your friends about its greatness, you won't be disappointed in unknown author John Hart's first book. Take note: When Hart is famous, you'll brag about reading The King of Lies before anyone had heard of him.

The bitter heart of the story is a dead man named Ezra Pickens. Ezra was the dirt-poor son of sharecroppers who, through hard work, naked ambition and an overriding need to make himself powerful, had succeeded too well. Now he's a corpse with two bullet holes in his skull, a will in probate carrying $40 million and a couple of seriously messed up adult children left to deal with his sins.

Ezra Pickens' son Jackson is also an attorney who has been laboring under the disappearance of his aggressive father 18 months ago. When his father's corpse is discovered, Jackson's life comes to a head. There's his younger, fragile sister Jean's emotional state to worry about. On top of that, there's Jackson's faltering marriage, his affair with the love of his life, who comes from the wrong side of the tracks, and mostly, the pit-bull of a detective named Mills, who's after Jackson as the prime suspect in his father's murder.

From the grave, Pickens is manipulating everyone who was once in his earthly orbit, and just as he did while alive, he has them all twisted in knots. Jackson believes his sister was responsible for the death, and she thinks it was him. Jackson's striving, socially ambitious wife has plans for the fortune. Meanwhile, the cops are out to close this high-profile case quickly, and they have no patience with Jackson Pickens' legal tricks.

There's nothing you can find in those ghostwritten stories from the big guns that will come close to the emotional gravitas and engagement you'll find from this unknown storyteller. Treat yourself to something new and truly out of the ordinary. Get a copy of The King of Lies.

Peter Mergendahl

MYSTERY

In Plain Sight

By C.J. Box (Putnam, $24.95).

Grade: A

If you need a good reason to pick up a new mystery, look no further. C.J. Box is one of the best things going in the genre, and he lives right up the highway in Cheyenne, which makes him practically a neighbor. His sixth book, In Plain Sight, continues his excellent run of suspense on the range.

Back home in the Bighorn Mountains after his last adventure in Jackson Hole, fish and game warden Joe Pickett is up against long odds again. The heirs of a rich and powerful ranching family prepare to slug it out over the estate. Problem is, they expect everyone in the town of Saddlestring (based on real-life Sheridan) to choose sides on who gets the ranch, too. To make matters more chaotic, the family matriarch Opal Scarlett has disappeared under suspicious circumstances.

Pickett gets involved after the new foreman for one of the brothers beats him up. His daughter, friends with the Scarlett family's youngest, goes to the ranch for a slumber party, and we get a taste of what Box calls Ranch Gothic - dark rooms with old paintings in the castle-like ranch house, and the family's spooky, overwrought emphasis on its ranching legacy. Meanwhile, granny remains missing.

Fans of the series will appreciate the way Box connects previous storylines with the current plot. John Wayne Keeley, the very scary bad guy of In Plain Sight, is related to characters in two of Box's previous novels. Then there's the return of Pickett's nemesis from Out of Range, Randy Pope. With the loathsome Pope appointed to head the state's Game and Fish Department, Pickett knows he's in for a tough time with a boss who's out to get him. Box portrays with stinging precision the frustration and misery of an employee nitpicked by an incompetent boss.

Northern Wyoming, ripe with coal, gas and oil, boasts a rich vein of mysteries as well, with both Box and newcomer Craig Johnson writing about the region. Mystery readers will be the winners who harvest this newest natural resource from the Cowboy State.

Jane Dickinson

CHILDREN

Taming Horrible Harry

By Lili Chartrand; illustrated by Rogé; translated by Susan Ouriou (Tundra Books, $16.95, ages 4 and up).

Grade: A

If you're reading this review, you know how captivating books can be. Well, here's a story from France that celebrates just that. In this simple tale, a big, scary monster turns into a lovable lug after discovering his first book.

Taming Horrible Harry, translated from French by Susan Ouriou, introduces readers to Harry, a pencil-nosed beast with pointy teeth, as he waits in the woods for someone to frighten. His job is to scare away humans with a terrible roar.

This particular day, Harry spies a girl perched on a rock reading and lets out a cry so awful that every bird flies away. The girl, however, doesn't budge. This makes Harry furious, and he lets loose his most bloodcurdling cry. At last! The girl is terrified and runs away, dropping her book behind her.

Chuckling at his success, Harry glimpses the book she dropped, not knowing what a book is. With the help of Dolores del Dragon, the only creature in the forest able to read, Harry learns what the words say, and soon, he's neglecting his monster duties to kick back and read. The leader of the Grand Council of Monsters denounces Harry, but then Harry reads aloud to him, and the forest is never the same again.

Originally titled in France as The Big Bad Monster Discovers Reading, this light-hearted tale is for anyone who loves books. Quebecois artist Rogé's color-saturated illustrations sell the book even before readers open it up. His colorful monsters have all the parts to make them scary - multiple eyes and lizard tongues - but look as huggable as Mike and Sulley.

Jennifer Miller

UNREAL WORLDS

Vellum: The Book of All Hours

By Hal Duncan (Del Rey, $14.95).

Grade: B+

If you like your novels to proceed in a linear fashion - something happens, which leads to another situation and so on - this heavy tome is not for you. On the other hand, if you're looking for convoluted plots and frequent time, place and narrator shifts; if your definition of a good read is an enigma within an enigma wrapped in a conundrum, then Hal Duncan's first novel should be just your cup of tea.

Vellum, first of all, is a tale about a family's search for a mysterious book that tells of everything that ever happened or will happen. When Reynard Carter discovers the book, he begins a centuries-long odyssey that takes him everywhere, including, apparently, other dimensions where British college students have horns and wings.

Second, Vellum is a tale of war, as the author transports readers from the WWI to WWII, to war in the Middle East, to a global conflict in the year 2017, back to prehistoric conflicts and to the ongoing battle between the angels and Lucifer's minions - often in the same chapter.

Third, Vellum is a tale of morality and sexuality. Many characters are gay, and some are persecuted for it. The 1998 case of Matthew Shepherd's hate murder in Laramie plays a significant part in the middle of the book, both literally and metaphorically. But heterosexual sex is occasionally touched upon as well.

Some human characters become "unkin," in this story - that is, people who have been turned to angels. A major protagonist is Seamus Finnan, a 20th century Irishman who refuses to take sides in the angel/demon battle. This is not allowed, and both sides are after him. In addition, Seamus has converted a brother and sister to the unkin ranks, and they follow in his rebel ways.

Unlike many novels with planned sequels, Vellum has a satisfying conclusion. Duncan's talent and research abilities are immense, and reading his first book is a challenge, but finishing it is an accomplishment.

Mark Graham

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News