What is Robert H. Frank reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Robert H. Frank, the H. J. Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University.

Professor Frank is the author of two new books: Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class (University of California Press, 2007) and The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas (Basic Books, 2007).

One of the books he tagged appears in the Page 69 Test series:

My favorite entry from the increasingly crowded post-Freakonomics bookshelf is Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist, out now in paperback.

Frank has several other interesting titles in his book bag -- and they aren't all about economics -- so read on.

Robert Frank is a monthly contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in the New York Times. Until 2001, he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences. He has also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Nepal, chief economist for the Civil Aeronautics Board, fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and was Professor of American Civilization at l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Frank's books include Choosing the Right Pond, Passions within Reason, Microeconomics and Behavior, Luxury Fever, and What Price the Moral High Ground? His The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us, co-authored with Philip Cook, was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times, and was included in Business Week's list of the ten best books for 1995.

Writers Read: Robert H. Frank.

--Marshal Zeringue

Swierczynski's "The Blonde," the movie

The current feature at My Book, The Movie: Duane Swierczynski's The Blonde.

My December 2006 review of The Blonde opens:

If Duane Swierczynski's new book The Blonde hasn't been optioned by a movie producer yet, Hollywood's paid novel readers aren't doing their jobs. And once they do "discover" this book, I hope they'll hire me to write the adapted screenplay. Why? Because the story will make a cracking good movie and the screenplay almost writes itself.

So who would Swierczynski cast in the film adaptation of his novel? He writes:

I didn't have any specific actors in mind when writing The Blonde -- in fact, I think that's a recipe for disaster. Instead of allowing your character to develop his/her own voice and personality, you risk having them all sound like Samuel L. Jackson. Because that's who I could cast in every single role of every single novel or story I've written: Samuel L. Jackson.

I don't even know what my characters look like. I know what makes them tick, but if I try to imagine them, they're kind of vague blurs. I don't like when novelists overdo with character detail; I'd rather imagine my own version.

Read on about the actors who made the grade.

Among the praise for The Blonde:

"Delicious modern punk rock hard-boiled storytelling."
--Greg Rucka

"A hilarious nail-biter, a tour de force."
--Laura Lippman

"Lean as a starving model, mean as a snake, fast as a jet. This guy has got to be the hottest new thing in crime fiction."
--Joe R. Lansdale

"Insanely inventive. This inspired high-concept thriller rockets from climax to climax with an intensity that will leave you breathless. It's like the movie 'Speed' -- only with brains."
--Charles Ardai

Duane Swierczynski is editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia City Paper. Before The Blonde, he wrote The Wheelman, which was nominated for the Gumshoe Award and was optioned for film.

Read more about The Blonde, including an excerpt, at the St. Martin's Minotaur website and at Swierczynski's Secret Dead Blog. Also visit the author's MySpace and Crimespace pages.

See my review of The Blonde.

My Book, The Movie: The Blonde.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Min Jin Lee's "Free Food for Millionaires"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Min Jin Lee's Free Food for Millionaires.

About the book, from the publisher:

Casey Han's four years at Princeton gave her many things, 'But no job and a number of bad habits.' Casey's parents, who live in Queens, are Korean immigrants working in a dry cleaner, desperately trying to hold on to their culture and their identity. Their daughter, on the other hand, has entered into rarified American society via scholarships. But after graduation, Casey sees the reality of having expensive habits without the means to sustain them.

As she navigates Manhattan, we see her life and the lives around her, culminating in a portrait of New York City and its world of haves and have-nots. Free Food for Millionaires offers up a fresh exploration of the complex layers we inhabit both in society and within ourselves. Inspired by 19th century novels such as Vanity Fair and Middlemarch, Min Jin Lee examines maintaining one's identity within changing communities in what is her remarkably assured debut.

Among the praise for Free Food for Millionaires:

"It would be remarkable if she had simply written a long novel that was as easy to devour as a 19th-century romance — packed with tales of flouted parental expectations, fluctuating female friendships and rivalries, ephemeral (and longer-lasting) romantic hopes and losses, and high-stakes career gambles. But Lee intensifies her drama by setting it against an unfamiliar backdrop: the tightly knit social world of Korean immigrants, whose children strive to blend into their American foreground without clashing with their distinctive background. It’s a feat of coordination and contrast that could kill a chameleon, but Lee pulls it off with conviction.” [read more]
– Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review

“Min Jin Lee’s keen eye for class concerns and her confident, muscular writing about the conflicting pulls toward one’s cultural heritage and the unknowable, wide-open future make Free Food for Millionaires a pleasure.”
– Meg Wolitzer, The Position and Surrender, Dorothy

“Free Food for Millionaires is different from any book I’ve ever read—a big, juicy, commercial Korean American coming-of-age novel, one that could spawn a satisfying miniseries, and one that definitely belongs in this summer’s beach bag.”
– Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly

"Not since Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake has an author so exquisitely evoked what it’s like to be an immigrant.... As much as this is an immigrant story, it’s also an American story full of class struggle, rugged individualism, social status and above all, the money haves and have-nots. Most of all it’s an epic mediation on love, both familial and romantic. Lee offers us love in all its tenacious and painful glory.”
– Carol Memmott, USA Today

Min Jin Lee has received the NYFA Fellowship for Fiction, the Peden Prize from The Missouri Review for Best Story, and the Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writer. Her work has also been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts and anthologized in To Be Real (Doubleday, 1995) and Breeder (Seal Press, 2001).

Read an excerpt from Free Food for Millionaires and more about Min Jin Lee and her work at her website.

The Page 99 Test: Free Food for Millionaires.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg.69: Paul LaRosa's "Nightmare in Napa"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Paul LaRosa's Nightmare in Napa.

About the book, from the author's website:

An award-winning journalist delves behind the scenes of a chilling true crime story aired on TV's 48 Hours Mystery -- and uncovers twisting revelations inside an already shattering case of double homicide.

Halloween night in idyllic Napa, California: two young women roommates -- a transplanted Southern beauty queen and a popular engineering graduate from the Napa area -- are brutally stabbed by an intruder who entered their home through a first-floor window. A third roommate heard the horrific commotion but never saw the killer. News of the tragedy sent shockwaves throughout the peaceful region as well as the nation -- but while investigators pursued every angle from a satanic cult to a disgruntled suitor, the murders of Leslie Mazzara and Adriane Insogna remained unsolved. Until someone came forward with a shocking confession -- someone who was close enough to the women to escape suspicion. Someone who knew the victims all too well.

Complete with up-to-the-minute court action and the stunning crime scene breakthroughs that turned the case around, here is the full story of the Nightmare In Napa.

Publishers Weekly wrote:

LaRosa's clear chronology and thorough research give the tale the weight of reality, while his skillful winnowing of details and novellike prose keep the pace up and the pages turning; anyone with a taste for true crime will happily gulp down this sharp, satisfying narrative.

Read an excerpt from Nightmare in Napa and learn more about the book at the author's website.

Paul LaRosa is an Emmy Award-winning producer for the CBS newsmagazine 48 Hours. He won a Primetime Emmy for the acclaimed CBS documentary 9/11, and has also won a Peabody Award, a Christopher Award, and an Edward R. Murrow Award. For sixteen years he was reporter for the New York Daily News, where he was the co-winner with Anna Quindlen of the Meyer Berger Award given by Columbia University's School of Journalism.

LaRosa is also the author of Tacoma Confidential.

The Page 69 Test: Nightmare in Napa.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mark Oppenheimer reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Mark Oppenheimer, the coordinator of the Yale Journalism Initiative and the author of two books: Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture and Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America.

Oppenheimer graduated from Yale College in 1996 and received a Ph.D. from Yale in American religion in 2003. In 2003, he was the Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes at Stanford University; he has also taught at Wesleyan University and Hartford Seminary, and he has spoken at universities, synagogues, and churches throughout the country. Oppenheimer's freelance writing has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The American Scholar, Slate, and elsewhere, and he contributes commentary at The Huffington Post.

Writers Read: Mark Oppenheimer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Linda Greenlaw's list

This week at The Week magazine, Linda Greenlaw, best-selling author of The Hungry Ocean, The Lobster Chronicles, All Fishermen Are Liars, and a new novel, Slipknot, named "The List."

One of her titles:

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

I have a huge crush on Pat Conroy. I love his voice and writing style and the way he articulates his love of place. He is a fascinating storyteller and uses great detail in portraying the tragic story of an ill-fated family.

Read about another title from Greenlaw's list.

Visit Linda Greenlaw's website and learn more about Slipknot.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: "Becoming Free in the Cotton South"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Becoming Free in the Cotton South by Susan E. O'Donovan.

About the book, from the Harvard University Press website:

Becoming Free in the Cotton South challenges our most basic ideas about slavery and freedom in America. Instead of seeing emancipation as the beginning or the ending of the story, as most histories do, Susan O'Donovan explores the perilous transition between these two conditions, offering a unique vision of both the enormous changes and the profound continuities in black life before and after the Civil War.

This boldly argued work focuses on a small place -- the southwest corner of Georgia -- in order to explicate a big question: how did black men and black women's experiences in slavery shape their lives in freedom? The reality of slavery's demise is harsh: in this land where cotton was king, the promise of Reconstruction passed quickly, even as radicalism crested and swept the rest of the South. Ultimately, the lives former slaves made for themselves were conditioned and often constrained by what they had endured in bondage. O'Donovan's significant scholarship does not diminish the heroic efforts of black Americans to make their world anew; rather, it offers troubling but necessary insight into the astounding challenges they faced.

Becoming Free in the Cotton South is a moving and intimate narrative, drawing upon a multiplicity of sources and individual stories to provide new understanding of the forces that shaped both slavery and freedom, and of the generation of African Americans who tackled the passage that lay between.

Among the praise for the book:

"Susan O'Donovan details the major changes for the slave and free black population of Southwest Georgia in the years of settlement, of the Civil War, and of the economic and political adaptations to emancipation. Of particular importance are the different impacts these changes had upon black men and black women, and upon the relations between belief and behavior in slavery and then in freedom."
--Stanley L. Engerman, University of Rochester

"The seismic shifts set in motion by the emancipation reached into every corner of the American South. In exploring one small corner, Becoming Free reveals how the earthquake that accompanied freedom's arrival shifted gender relations in the household, field, and hustings and in the process changed much more. Susan O'Donovan's small story is a big story, an original one, and an important one."
--Ira Berlin, author of Many Thousands Gone and Generations of Captivity

"As an exposition of how land, labor, and gender structured a hard slavery and a 'hard' emancipation as well, O'Donovan's analytical narrative is hard to beat. An exceptionally rich and textured study that never loses sight of the larger stakes."
--James C. Scott, Yale University

"With meticulous and probing scholarship, O'Donovan's work acutely demonstrates the tragic continuities between slavery and freedom in the American South. Her analysis of the intersection of ethno-racial, economic and gender domination immediately after slavery illuminates a crucial period in African American history and radically alters conventional scholarly interpretations of the development of the black family. This exquisitely accomplished and engagingly written work is surely one of the most important studies in African American and Southern histories to appear in years."
--Orlando Patterson, author of Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries

Read an excerpt and learn more about Becoming Free in the Cotton South at the Harvard University Press website.

Susan E. O'Donovan is Associate Professor of African and African American Studies and of History at Harvard University. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867, series 3, volume 1, Land and Labor, 1866-1867 and volume 2, Land and Labor, 1865.

The Page 99 Test: Becoming Free in the Cotton South.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joanna Kavenna's "Inglorious"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Joanna Kavenna's Inglorious.

About the book, from the author's website:

Rosa Lane is 35, at Dante’s centre point of life, when the individual is meant to garner experience and become wise. So far she has managed well enough without wisdom; she has been obedient to prevailing mores, she has worked hard at her decent job in London and has never troubled the stream. Yet she is suddenly disoriented by events, unable to understand the death of her mother, finding the former buttresses of her life — her long-term relationship, her steady job — no longer support her. When she leaves her job, and her relationship ends, she is thrust out into a great loneliness; she becomes acutely aware of — tormented by — the details of the city, the lives of those around her, and the deluge of competing cries.

Having stripped herself of her former context, and become inexplicable to her friends and family, she embarks on a mock-epic quest for a sense of purpose, for an answer to the hoary old question ‘Why Live?’ Her comical grail quest is fraught with minor trials — encounters with former friends, unsympathetic landladies, prospective employers, theory-mongers, and denizens of the ‘real world’. Rosa also falls into a state of constant motion, nervously treading around London. Yet her constant circumnavigations of the city fail to enlighten her, and she escapes from the city to join friends in Cumbria. This escape finally precipitates the climax of the book, the greatest trial, and the beginnings of her return to normality, whatever that was.

Among the early praise for Inglorious:

“The downward spiral of a breakdown begins ever so slowly. You turn, you slip, and you turn again, and then you start hurtling from basement to sub-basement to lower levels 3 and 4. Inglorious is simply stunning. Honest, brilliant, arresting, and barefisted -- for the blows come hard. But it is also a work of art: tart, wise, human, funny, and best of all, without the least trace of sentiment. Kavenna finds humor in the abyss, light in the dark, and ultimately exhilaration at the end of the tunnel.”
--André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name

"Joanna Kavenna’s writing is full of wit and wisdom in glorious proportion."
--Aleksandar Hemon, author of Nowhere Man

"[T]his journey into a nervous breakdown is described with such relish and mordant humour that it remains as gripping as many more epic voyages."
--Guardian

Joanna Kavenna's first book, The Ice Museum, was short-listed for the Ondaatje Prize. Her writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and the International Herald Tribune, among other publications.

Read an excerpt from Inglorious and more at Kavenna's website.

The Page 69 Test: Inglorious.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Warren Hammond's "KOP"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Warren Hammond's KOP.

About the book, from the author's website:

Juno is a dirty cop with a difficult past and an uncertain future. When his family and thousands of others emigrated to the colony world of Lagarto, they were promised a bright future on a planet with a booming economy. But before the colonists arrived, everything changed. An opportunistic Earth-based company developed a way to produce a cheaper version of Lagarto’s main export, thus effectively paupering the planet and all its inhabitants.

Growing up on post-boom Lagarto, Juno is but one of the many who live in despair. Once he was a young cop in the police department of the capital city of Koba. That was before he started taking bribes from Koba’s powerful organized crime syndicate. Yet despite his past sins, some small part of him has not given up hope. So he risks his life, his marriage and his job to expose a cabal that would enslave the planet for its own profit.

But he's got more pressing problems, when he's confronted with a dead man, a short-list of leads, and the obligatory question: who done it? Set up for a fall, partnered with a beautiful young woman whose main job is to betray him, and caught in a squeeze between the police chief and the crooked mayor, Juno is a compelling, sympathetic hero on a world that has no heroes.

An exciting science fiction adventure and a dark, gritty noir thriller told in taut, powerful prose, this is a remarkable debut novel.

Among the early praise for KOP:

“Gritty and steamy, Hammond’s KOP is both a throwback to the glory days of hard-boiled action thrillers and a prescient vision of the next place where technology and human frailties will intersect. Its blood-specked armor-plating gradually -- and impressively -- reveals a genuine heart.”
—K.W. Jeter, bestselling author of Bladerunner 2: The Edge of Human

"Warren Hammond’s KOP is a futuristic techno thriller in a Bogart overcoat. A beautiful first novel, straight out of the dark streets of noir, but kissed with futuristic neon and chrome. Very original and entertaining, and yet somehow pleasingly familiar."
—Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar Award-winning author of The Bottoms

"Gritty, tough, sweaty, with a vivid and well-thought-out backdrop, solid, brutal sleuthing, a deeply flawed but worthy hero and a sequel waiting in the wings: a powerful combination."
—Kirkus

"Hammond's gritty, futuristic detective story is full of morally gray characters, ambiguous alliances, necessary betrayals, and a lot of heart. A thrillingly dark read."
—Booklist

"An excellent science fiction mystery of a world-weary and corrupt policeman making a final stand."
—Denver Post

"A corrupt policeman, an overgrown jungle city that gets only five hours of sun between 17-hour nights, and battling crime gangs set the extremely noir scene for Hammond's solidly constructed, fast-paced SF debut. Offer[s] rewards to fans of both crime novels and science fiction."
—Publishers Weekly

"KOP is about as good as noir crime gets since Dashiell Hammett stopped writing. Yes, I know what I just said."
—David Drake, bestselling author of Hammer’s Slammers and Lacey and His Friends

KOP is Warren Hammond's first novel. Its sequel, Ex-KOP, is due to hit book stores in 2008. Currently, he is writing Tolegate, a science fiction novel independent of the KOP series.

The Page 99 Test: KOP.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jonathan Stroud reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Jonathan Stroud, the author of the acclaimed Bartimaeus Trilogy and other books.

His prefatory remarks:

At any one time I tend to have several books on the go, ones which I am dipping into for research purposes, or just on a whim, and ones that I am seriously trying to read properly. It's a fairly chaotic scene, and usually I feel pretty guilty about not reading more than I do. [Read on.]

Visit Stroud's official website.

Jonathan Stroud's favorite fantasy books.

Writers Read: Jonathan Stroud.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wendy French's "Full of It," the movie

Wendy French's novels are sMothering, Going Coastal, After the Rice, and the recently released Full of It.

At My Book, The Movie she speculates about the casting for a possible film adaptation of her new novel.

Here's the plot of Full of It:

Lauren Peterson has a brand new life, but no idea what to do with it.

After calling off her engagement, she's single for the first time in years and ready to take on the world. Instead, she discovers that starting over isn't all it's cracked up to be.

When a spinster aunt she barely remembers bequeaths her a house in Portland, Oregon, Lauren intends to fix it up and flip it for a tidy profit. However, her big mouth (which is always a step ahead of her brain) has other ideas, and before she knows it, she's moving in.

As Lauren takes on the task of making the house into home, she discovers plenty of surprises and colorful neighbors to shake things up. From faulty wiring and a new sinkhole in the living room, to the salty curmudgeon next door, Lauren's new life is heading in unexpected directions. Her friends and family think she's making a grave mistake, but for the first time ever, it might not be Lauren's mouth, but her heart that will finally come out ahead.

Read on to see who the author imagines portraying her main characters.

Among the early praise for Full of It:

"French shines at writing chick-lit with characters that face bigger problems than a bad shopping habit or a few extra pounds. Her fourth effort follows the lead of her previous novels, combining real issues with healthy doses of humor. Readers who appreciate French's realistic portrayals of young women finding their way won't be disappointed with her latest."
--Booklist

"French... locates the warmth in her heroine and creates an agreeable fantasy about 20-somethings trying to find a meaningful adulthood."
--Publishers Weekly

Read an excerpt from the novel and learn more about Full of It at Wendy French's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: "The Tin Roof Blowdown"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: James Lee Burke's The Tin Roof Blowdown.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the waning days of summer, 2005, a storm with greater impact than the bomb that struck Hiroshima peels the face off southern Louisiana.

This is the gruesome reality Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers as he is deployed to New Orleans. As James Lee Burke's new novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown, begins, Hurricane Katrina has left the commercial district and residential neighborhoods awash with looters and predators of every stripe. The power grid of the city has been destroyed, New Orleans reduced to the level of a medieval society. There is no law, no order, no sanctuary for the infirm, the helpless, and the innocent. Bodies float in the streets and lie impaled on the branches of flooded trees. In the midst of an apocalyptical nightmare, Robicheaux must find two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who may be more dangerous than the criminals looting the city.

In a singular style that defies genre, James Lee Burke has created a hauntingly bleak picture of life in New Orleans after Katrina. Filled with complex characters and depictions of people at both their best and worst, The Tin Roof Blowdown is not only an action-packed crime thriller, but a poignant story of courage and sacrifice that critics are already calling Burke's best work.

Among the early praise for The Tin Roof Blowdown:

“The Tin Roof Blowdown is James Lee Burke’s best Dave Robicheaux novel since In the Electric Mist of the Confederate Dead, which means that it's Faulknerian. Recovering alcoholic Robicheaux goes out to do justice in the violent aftermath of Katrina – 'New Orleans was a song that went under the waves' – and the pols are behaving as badly as the cops, who are already in cahoots with the Mafia, and you can’t tell the race warriors from the vigilantes. Beneath the surface of these dark waters, in search of the body of a junkie priest, Robicheaux finds golden lights broken like Communion wafers.”
– John Leonard, Harper’s

“Katrina was no fictional event, and Burke writes about its aftermath as vividly and powerfully as any nonfiction chronicler… the novel’s power comes from the way it explores the tragedy of Katrina in a way that is perfectly in tune with the series, a kind of perfect storm brought together by the confluence of fictional and non-fictional realms.” ­
– Booklist, starred review

“Burke creates dense, rich prose that draws the reader into a web of greed and violence. Each of his characters feels the hands of both grace and of perdition, and the final outcome of their struggle is never quite certain. Burke showcases all that was both right and wrong in our response to this national disaster, proving along the way that nobody captures the spirit of Gulf Coast Louisiana better.”
– Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Apart from the operatically scaled evocation of the hurricane, a shattering portrait Burke was born to create, the most striking creation here is Bertrand Melancon, a lost soul who can’t decide whether he’s an avenger or a penitent.”
– Kirkus

James Lee Burke, a rare winner of two Edgar Awards, is the author of over twenty novels, including such New York Times bestsellers as Bitterroot, Purple Cane Road, Cimarron Rose, Jolie Blon's Bounce, and Dixie City Jam.

Visit Burke's website and read an excerpt from The Tin Roof Blowdown.

The Page 69 Test: The Tin Roof Blowdown.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69 & Pg. 99: Bob Morris's "Bermuda Schwartz"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test --where the author put the Page 69 Test to his novel as well -- is Bob Morris's Bermuda Schwartz.

About the book, from the author's website:

A young scuba guide, scouting new dive sites in the shipwreck-laden reefs that rim Bermuda, makes a fatal discovery: Below these waters lies a treasure more valuable than gold or jewels. And some people are willing to kill for it.

Enter Zack Chasteen, knockabout palm-tree farmer, and his inscrutable Taino associate, Boggy, who have been dragged to Bermuda by Zack's ladylove, Barbara Pickering. She needs their help throwing a gala 70th birthday party for her wealthy and eccentric Aunt Trula. While there, Zack drops by the bank to visit his money, a couple of million dollars earned in recent exploits that Zack had stashed away in one of the country's notorious tax-free offshore accounts. Big problem: Zack's money is gone and his bankers can't seem to explain where it is or who might have it.

Zack is grappling with another issue: Where is this whole thing going with him and Barbara Pickering? She's not pressing, but it's clear she'd like to tie the knot, maybe start a family. Is Zack really ready to say, "I do?" As he wrestles with the twin dilemmas of love and money, both of which may wind up lost, Zack falls in with wise and wily Teddy Schwartz, a legendary Bermudan treasure salvager and one of Aunt Trula's longtime paramours. Schwartz is harboring a few secrets of his own, and Zack is soon crossing paths with a secret sect of religious zealots who are hoping to complete a bloody and tumultuous 2,000-year-old quest.

Among the praise for Bermuda Schwartz:

"Comic crime novels are exceedingly difficult to pull off, especially as the inevitable Leonard/Hiaasen comparisons set up expectations that disappoint -- and that's before reader tastes about humor kick in. But Morris gets things very right in his third novel, which marks the return of football hero-turned-adventurer Zach Chasteen."
--Sarah Weinman, Baltimore Sun

"[T]here's a ripping good yarn here, and that will be plenty for those who liked Zack's earlier adventures, Bahamarama (2004) and Jamaica Me Dead (2005)."
--Booklist

"Excellent...."
--David J. Montgomery

"One spends a lot of time laughing when reading one of Morris's books. Zach and Boggy need to transplant 8 enormous palm trees to an estate in Bermuda and they get involved in the murders of divers looking for historic relics in shipwrecks. Money laundering and the illegal sale of found treasures add to the mystery. The characters are not only fun but described in a way that makes them seem real. If you haven't read a Zach Chasteen mystery, you need to start now!"
--Susan Wasson

A freelance writer and editor, Bob Morris travels widely and contributes to a number of publications, including National Geographic Traveler, Bon Appetit, Islands, Robb Report, Latitudes and Men's Fitness. These travels have inspired his series of mystery novels, each of which takes place on a different Caribbean island. The first one, Bahamarama, was a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Mystery Novel and chosen by the Library Journal as one the year’s Top Five Mysteries. His second novel, Jamaica Me Dead, was a BookSense Pick by the American Booksellers Association.

Read more about Bermuda Schwartz, including an excerpt, at Bob Morris's website; visit Morris's blog, Surrounded on Three Sides.

The Page 99 Test: Bermuda Schwartz.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Alan Michael Parker reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Alan Michael Parker, author of five collections of poems, Days Like Prose, The Vandals, Love Song with Motor Vehicles, A Peal of Sonnets, and the forthcoming Elephants & Butterflies, as well as a novel, Cry Uncle.

Among the books he mentions:

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. The novel’s as energetic as the characters are dissipated, which seems to me technically risky. Plus the novel’s an astonishing work of speculative fiction, so when it succeeds, my assumptions about history are called into question. [read on]

Alan Michael Parker is also editor of The Imaginary Poets, co-editor of The Routledge Anthology of Cross-Gendered Verse, and Editor for North America of Who's Who in 20th Century World Poetry. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Pleiades, and The Yale Review, among other magazines; his prose appears regularly in journals including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The New York Times Book Review and The New Yorker. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Arts and Science Council, the Eastern Frontier Society, the MacDowell Colony, and the Seaside Institute, Alan Michael Parker teaches at Davidson College, where he is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing, and at Queens University, where he is a Core Faculty member in the low-residency M.F.A. program.

Visit Alan Michael Parker's website to learn more about his writing.

Writers Read: Alan Michael Parker

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Alafair Burke's "Dead Connection"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Alafair Burke's Dead Connection.

About the book, from the author's website:

In this electrifying thriller, a rookie detective goes undercover on the Internet dating scene to draw out a serial killer targeting single women in Manhattan

When two young women are murdered on the streets of New York, exactly one year apart, Detective Ellie Hatcher is called up for a special assignment on the homicide task force. The killer has left behind a clue connecting the two cases to First Date, a popular online dating service, and Flann McIlroy, an eccentric, publicity-seeking homicide detective, is convinced that only Ellie can help him pursue his terrifying theory: someone is using the lure of the Internet and the promise of love to launch a killing spree against the women of New York City.

To catch the killer, Ellie must enter a high-tech world of stolen identities where no one is who they appear to be. And for her, the investigation quickly becomes personal: she fits the profile of the victims, and she knows firsthand what pursuing a sociopath can do to a cop -- back home in Wichita, Kansas, her father lost his life trying to catch a notorious serial murderer.

When the First Date killer begins to mimic the monster who destroyed her father, Ellie knows the game has become personal for him, too. Both hunter and prey, she must find the killer before he claims his next victim -- who could very well be her.

Among the early praise for Dead Connection:

"These are characters I'd follow forever! Dead Connection is a sleek and utterly riveting thriller that deserves every accolade it is sure to get."
--Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Mephisto Club

"Forbidden love, a retired cop, Russian gangsters and secrets from the victims' pasts converge in Burke's intricately-plotted, fast-paced fourth (Close Case, 2005, etc.). The attractive Ellie makes for a flawed but likeable heroine-smart, good with details, but ultimately capable of an error with devastating consequences. Holds the reader's attention from first word to last, and begs for a sequel."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Burke (criminal law, Hofstra Law Sch.) takes a break from her terrific Samantha Kincaid legal thriller series (Close Case) with this novel of Internet dating, murder, and high-tech mayhem.... This stunning thriller ends with a tantalizing glimpse into what is sure to be a highly anticipated sequel."
--Library Journal

"Alafair Burke is the author of the wonderful Samantha Kincaid series, and her stand-alone debut is every bit as good as the books that preceded it.... Intelligent, emotionally literate and unusually -- given the dark subject-matter -- funny, with strong characters and tight plotting, Dead Connection is a riveting read."
--The Guardian

"Pure, heart-pounding escapism ... Burke taps into a cultural hot-button issue: the increasing popularity of online dating sites and the very real possibility that the person you are connecting with is lying about who he/she is."
--USA Today, in a Top 5 summer thriller pick

"Alafair Burke delivers a first-rate thriller, as a rookie detective investigates the dark side of internet dating while trying to survive the mean streets of New York. Absolutely riveting."
--Lisa Gardner, author of Gone

"Alafair Burke proves her flair for creating compelling characters and a tricky plot in Dead Connection. Fans of detective fiction will enjoy young, complicated Ellie Hatcher as she willingly, frighteningly, plays victim, hoping to trap a killer."
--Perri O'Shaughnessy, author of Keeper of the Keys

A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair Burke now teaches criminal law at Hofstra Law School. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School and currently serves as a legal and trial commentator for radio and television programs, including Court TV. Her first three books feature Samantha Kincaid, a Deputy District Attorney in Portland.

Read more about Dead Connection, including an excerpt, at Alafair Burke's website, her MySpace page, and her Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Connection.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: "Famous Fathers & Other Stories"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Pia Z. Ehrhardt's Famous Fathers & Other Stories.

About the book, from the publisher:

A gracefully disconcerting collection of stories by the winner of the 2005 Narrative Prize.

Wavering between fidelity and freedom, the women in this sparkling debut collection deal with emotional damage and unhealed heartbreak by plunging into unusual, often bizarre, relationships.

In Pia Z. Ehrhardt’s stories, adultery and impropriety become disquietingly mundane. Mothers expect daughters to be complicit in their love affairs, children seek shelter in families that aren’t their own, fathers court their daughters, a couple enters into a marriage that lasts thirty days a year, and a young girl takes to the road with the simple guy who bags groceries at Piggly Wiggly while her mother imagines her safely at school.

Beautifully restrained and shot through with tenderness, Famous Fathers and Other Stories establishes Ehrhardt as both a leading practitioner of the short story and an empathetic interpreter of the lives of wounded people who — instead of asking for what they want — take what is offered.

Among the early praise for Famous Fathers & Other Stories:

"Pia Ehrhardt’s tender and funny stories are filled with passionate women just barely bottled up by their everyday responsibilities: busy-hearted wives and mothers who may find themselves surprised by love or their own resiliency but who never doubted for a moment the intensity of their desire to touch the world...They render for us that jumping-on-a-trampoline feeling, when our most intimate connections are the top of the bounce, and the view up there is both scary and sweet."
--Jim Shepard, author of Love and Hydrogen and Project X

"Pia Z. Ehrhardt's Famous Fathers is a stunning first collection. The stories charm and tease and threaten with equal fervor...To read them is to be seduced, at night and in the slanting rain, in a new city, over quiet water, by the woman of your dreams."
--Frederick Barthelme, author of Moon Deluxe and Natural Selection

"Like the levees we are all so familiar with now in the post-Katrina world, if you make the wrong move, if you push her too far, the woman will break free. She will flood her restraints -- she will take over your streets, your house. She will send you fleeing from the city you love. But she doesn't do this in these stories -- she keeps herself as much in check as she can stand. And why? Well, for love. Love is the ultimate prize, the gift. She will do just about anything for love -- and truthfully she finds getting it from men easy enough."
--Myfawny Collins

Read more about Famous Fathers & Other Stories at the publisher's website, and visit Pia Z. Ehrhardt's website.

The Page 99 Test: Famous Fathers & Other Stories.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Arthur Allen reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Arthur Allen, a Washington-based journalist who has written for the New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate and Salon.

His book Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver was published earlier this year.

Part of Allen's report on his recent reading:

It being summer, I've also engaged in the relaxing art of book roulette. This means wandering into a summer rental or a friend's house, picking up things that look interesting, and reading them. For example Gore Vidal's memoir, Palimpsest, and, implausibly, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, which I had never read. I found it as compelling as a non-believer can, I guess. [Read on]

The Page 69 Test: Vaccine.

Writers Read: Arthur Allen.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books: major decisions of World War II

Ian Kershaw, author of a two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler as well as Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941, selected a five best "books about major decisions of World War II" list for Opinion Journal.

One title on the list:

The Road to Stalingrad by John Erickson (Harper & Row, 1975).

The first volume of John Erickson's two-volume "Stalin's War With Germany" examines one of the most extraordinary stories of World War II: how the Soviet Union was able to survive the German onslaught in the summer and autumn of 1941 and begin to turn the tables. Erickson's narrative, drawing upon a profound knowledge of Russian military sources, provides rich insight into the planning and actions of Stalin and the Soviet military leadership in autumn 1941, culminating in the devastating counter-offensive of the Red Army that began on Dec. 5. Erickson's analysis shows in vivid detail how this first major setback for the Wehrmacht, whose troops had reached the outskirts of Moscow, came about. It was a turning point in the war. With the American entry into the European conflict, just after Pearl Harbor, the road to Germany's eventual defeat started to open up.

Read about the title on the list that was written by a man who actually made many of the crucial decisions in the Second World War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: J.D. Rhoades's "Safe and Sound"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: J.D. Rhoades's Safe and Sound.

About the book, from the publisher:

Jack Keller works in fugitive apprehension, and never feels more alive than when he’s hunting down a skip. But when a young girl goes missing, and Keller finds out that the father is an AWOL member of the army’s elite Delta Force, he knows immediately that this case will be anything but fun and games.

Keller is a Gulf War vet who knows his way around the Army’s red tape, but the psychological scars from his experiences in the gulf have only just started to recede enough for him to live and love again. No one is sure how taking on the kidnapping case will affect him, least of all his girlfriend Marie, who’s counting on Jack’s recovery if they are going to have any future together. But a young girl’s life hangs in the balance, and a shadowy group of missing Delta commandos seems to be the key to finding her. For Jack Keller, it’s not an easy decision, but it’s the only one he can make: consequences be damned, he’s going after the girl.

Among the praise for Safe and Sound:

"[T]his book demands to be read. Safe and Sound is a tour-de-force, diabolical thriller. Rhoades is courageous, and he navigates this black passage with considerable skill. It paints how real evil in the world works -- when things that go bump in the night stare you in the face. You might be surprised at how you react, and what you are capable of doing."
—Anthony Rainone, January Magazine

"JD Rhoades kicks ass. Jack Keller kicks ass. You'll read it in one sitting, and be breathless by the finish. Rhoades writes with wit, style, and adrenalin. I can't wait for the next Keller adventure."
—J.A. Konrath, author of Rusty Nail

“Rhoades seems to have observed and remembered all the seedy details of life outside the centers of urban and suburban life as we know it. Nobody could totally invent this stuff."
—Chicago Tribune

“Rhoades portrays unrepentant, psychotic killers but manages to make us feel, almost against our will, the human hearts that beat within their violent souls."
—Booklist

"Rhoades has really hit his stride with his third book. I really loved the first two books by this new author but this third outing kicked my ass.... Rhoades writes incredibly human characters with a real flair for the way people really act. He also has pacing that moves the story like a finely tuned nascar racing machine, hugging the twists and turns and racing to a finish that left me out of breath."
—Jon Jordan

"Crisp dialogue and the author's deft use of local color support a narrative driven as effectively by characters as by events."
—Publishers Weekly

Read more about Safe and Sound, including an excerpt, at the publisher's website. Check out J.D. Rhoades's website, his blog, his MySpace page, and his Crimespace page.

The Page 69 Test: Safe and Sound.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tobias Buckell's "Ragamuffin," the movie

The current feature at My Book, The Movie: Tobias Buckell's Ragamuffin.

About the book, from the author's website:

The Benevolent Satrapy rule an empire of forty-eight worlds, linked by thousands of wormholes strung throughout the galaxy. Human beings, while technically “free,” mostly skulk around the fringes of the Satrapy, struggling to get by. The secretive alien Satraps tightly restrict the technological development of the species under their control. Entire worlds have been placed under interdiction, cut off from the rest of the universe.

Descended from the islanders of lost Earth, the Ragamuffins are pirates and smugglers, plying the lonely spaceways around a dead wormhole. For years, the Satraps have tolerated the Raga, but no longer. Now they have embarked on a campaign of extermination, determined to wipe out the unruly humans once and for all.

But one runaway woman may complicate their plans. Combat enabled, Nashara is more machine than flesh, and she carries inside her a doomsday weapon that could reduce the entire galaxy to chaos. A hunted fugitive, she just wants to get home before she’s forced to destroy civilization — and herself.

Visit My Book, The Movie to find out who the author sees carrying his story in a possible film adaptation.

Among the early praise for Ragamuffin and its predecessor, Crystal Rain:

"Tobias S. Buckell knows what he’s doing. His first novel, Crystal Rain, was one of the best science fiction books of 2006, and its follow-up, Ragamuffin, is now on the short list for 2007.... Buckell has succeeded, though, and he demonstrates again that adventure and well-written, high-concept speculation are not as mutually exclusive as they seem to be these days. With Crystal Rain or as a standalone story, Ragamuffin is first-class science fiction."
--Bookgasm

"Set in the same far-future universe as Crystal Rain (2006), in which the ruling alien Satrapy has confined humanity to the fringes of a confederation of worlds linked by wormholes, Buckell's second SF novel provides plenty of gun play and close calls for his heroes. The Satraps now seek the all-out destruction of the Raga, descendants of an Earth island culture. A young Raga woman, Nashara, attempts to evade capture from a determined pursuer, just as the wormhole to her home, Nanagada, mysteriously reopens. Meanwhile, the aliens who control Nanagada struggle for power, Teotl against Loa, while humans play them against each other, hoping to break their iron control. As the political situation destabilizes, Nashara and her friends appear, and total war for the right of humanity to live free becomes inevitable. Buckell plays with Caribbean and Aztec cultures, bending their exotic flavor to technology-flavored ends. Though the ending is never in doubt, the twisty ride getting there is a lot of fun."
--Publishers Weekly

"Ragamuffin is fun, and with Buckell being a master of the short chapters it’s a fairly fast read. I definitely suggest those that enjoy action-stuffed science fiction with a whole lot of cool to it to pick up this book right now. Postmodern space opera has never been so good. It’s got a rich balance of characters, apt dialogue, and enough life-or-death moments to keep readers flipping pages."
--Paul Abbamondi

"The sequel to Crystal Rain (2006) shows Buckell living up to its promises as the Benevolent Satrapy continues to be anything....The resulting conflict is first-class space adventure, with tip-top characterization, action, and world-building. May Buckell enjoy a long, productive career."
--Booklist

“There’s a nova in the skies: Tobias S. Buckell is a dazzling new voice, and Crystal Rain is an explosive debut. Read it!”
--Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award–winning author of Hominids

“Caribbean-born Buckell’s debut captures the flavor of Afro-Caribbean culture in the lilting dialogue of his characters and in their customs. [It’s] an original tale with distinctive characters and a fresh approach to world-building.”
--Library Journal (starred review) on Crystal Rain

“Buckell’s first novel conjures a vividly imagined world, spiced with intrigue and adventure that unfolds at a breakneck pace.”
--Booklist on Crystal Rain

Read more about Ragamuffin --including an extended excerpt -- and its predecessor, Crystal Rain, at Tobias Buckell's website.

My Book, The Movie: Ragamuffin.

--Marshal Zeringue