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Specialty bookshelf: reviews of thriller, mystery, fantasy and young adult titles

Rocky Mountain News

Published August 14, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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THRILLERS

Leather Maiden

By Joe R. Lansdale. Knopf, $25. Grade: A

In Lansdale's latest, a Gulf War veteran and Pulitzer-nominated journalist is forced to slink back to his hometown of Camp Rapture, Texas, after an ill-advised affair. But Cason Statler would have been better off staying in Houston and rolling tortillas, than falling, as he does, into an old news story about a missing young college student.

First, Cason's brother is implicated in the disappearance, then Cason has to rely on the help of his seriously psychotic Army buddy Booger to solve a case that proves to be of gruesome and macabre proportion.

Final word: Lansdale is one of those lesser-known writers whose works aren't ordered in bulk by bookstores. But those few books sell in a matter of days, as the author is known to a small coterie of fanatics as one of the world's best genre writers. The reading public at large remains oblivious. Pity them, but keep the secret.

-Peter Mergendahl

MYSTERY

Dead Hot Shot

By Victoria Houston. Bleak House, $24.95. Grade: A-

Loon Lake, Wis., the setting of Dead Hot Shot, is a little like Fargo on herbal tea - not quite so scary and a lot more relaxed. "You betcha" and other local expressions pepper the dialogue, and life revolves around huntin' and fishin'.

Retired dentist Doc Osborne was counting on a quiet Thanksgiving with his honey Lew Ferris, chief of police. But murder intervenes, and the pair is on the job all weekend, as Osborne serves as coroner in the tiny town. The death of a prominent and very rich local is just the beginning of an investigation that leads to a credit- card theft ring robbing the Midwest.

Although the culprits become obvious too soon, Houston writes a satisfying ending.

Final word: This is for mystery lovers who prefer a low-key whodunit with a little romance.

-Jane Dickinson

FANTASY

Subterranean Tales of Dark Fantasy

Edited by William Schafer. Subterranean, $40. Grade: A

Although the title suggests that these stories are "dark" - and some are dark indeed - there is also just a touch of whimsy in a few. How could Mike Resnick's Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders be totally bleak? And William Browning Spencer's Penguins of the Apocalypse even contains a Pooka like Mary Chase's 6-foot-tall invisible rabbit in Harvey.

Nevertheless, you can count on authors like Poppy Z. Brite, Joe R. Lansdale, Tim Powers and Caitlin R. Kiernan to provide chills and dread. All 10 original stories are exceptional mixes of the fantastic and reality.

Final word: Those who order this great anthology directly from subterraneanpress.com also will receive a chapbook of Joe Hill's Thumbprint, previously only available in a British magazine.

-Mark Graham

YOUNG ADULT

The Last of the High Kings

By Kate Thompson. Greenwillow Books, $16.99, ages 12 and up. Grade: A

In this enthralling sequel to The New Policeman, J.J.'s daughter Jenny is skipping school to roam the Irish countryside and claiming to talk to a ghost boy and shape-shifting goat that J.J. doesn't trust.

Jenny has always been intractable and disinterested in her family, but now J.J. and wife Aisling can barely control her. Aisling wants J.J. to stop traveling on music tours and help with the child-rearing, but first J.J. must get the maple wood promised him from the Land of Eternal Youth by his forgetful grandfather so he can make fiddles instead.

J.J. concocts a scheme to get the extraordinary wood, and bizarre things begin to happen: His teenage daughter Hazel feigns being pregnant, his son Donal tries to get a helicopter for a neighbor claiming to be the last of the High Kings, and Jenny risks everything for the family she's never felt a part of and the ghost condemned to a mountaintop.

Final word: This much-awaited follow-up is as unique and charming as the first, and unexpectedly thoughtful as Thompson imagines what a nature god would think of our misuse of the environment.

-Jennifer Miller