The ten best lady detectives

Adrian McKinty is the critically acclaimed author of Dead I Well May Be, the award-winning The Dead Yard, The Bloomsday Dead, and Hidden River. McKinty was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at Oxford University. His latest novel is Fifty Grand.

For the (London) Times, he named a top ten list of the best lady detectives.

A little background for the list, followed by #6 in the rankings:

As much as any hairy, beer drinking male can be I believe that I am in touch with my feminine side. I ride a girl’s bicycle, I went to a women’s college at Oxford and I have seen several episodes of Sex and the City (though I am not willing to admit the exact number for fear of damaging my hard-boiled crime writing credentials). As a kid in Northern Ireland I had two older sisters who kept me out of trouble and now I have two young daughters whose agenda is precisely the opposite. I grew up in an era of impressive female role models (Charlie’s Angels, The Bionic Woman, Mrs Thatcher) so I have never had a problem enjoying female protagonists in fiction, especially in detective fiction which became my go-to genre. Now that I have written a XX chromosomed detective in my book Fifty Grand, I thought I would share my own idiosyncratic list of 10 favourite female gumshoes....

* * *
6. Nancy Drew: Heroine of more than 200 ghost-written novels from the 1930's onwards Nancy Drew has evolved from a teenage flapper to a bobby soxer to a pseudo hippie to a modern career girl. Rich, 18, clever, with a conveniently dead mother, Nancy is an amateur sleuth with the time and money to solve crimes both frivolous and often surprisingly serious, aided sometimes by her attorney father or her cadre of friends. For a brief ante-Potterian period the playgrounds of the western world were divided into boys reading Hardy Boys books and girls reading Nancy Drew. Unable to bear the insufferably smug Hardy Boys I much preferred the slightly caustic, manipulative and invincible Drew. Nancy Drew’s influence cannot be underestimated, inspiring legions of American female cops, judges and politicians and crime writers like Laura Lipmann, Sara Paretsky and Linda Fairstein. Drew uses the tools of observation, persistence and her own gut instinct for a wrong ‘un - which is usually right on the money.

Read about another lady detective on the list.

Visit Adrian McKinty's blog.

The Page 69 Test: Fifty Grand.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Timothy Hallinan's "Breathing Water"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Breathing Water by Timothy Hallinan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Behind every great fortune is a great crime...

For American ex-pat writer Poke Rafferty, a late-night poker game delivers an unexpected prize: an "opportunity" to write the biography of Khun Pan, a flamboyant, vulgar, self-made billionaire with a criminal past and far-reaching political ambitions. The win seems like a stroke of luck, but as with so many things in vibrant, seductive, contradictory Bangkok—a city of innocence and evil, power and poverty—the allure of appearances masks something much darker. Within a few hours of folding his cards, Rafferty, his wife, Rose, beloved ­adopted daughter, Miaow, and best friend, Arthit, an honest Bangkok cop, have become pawns in a political struggle among some of Thailand's richest, most powerful, and most ruthless people.

A hero to the poor and dispossessed, Pan is like a bone in the throats of the beautiful, sophisticated "good" people who own and control every facet of Thailand and want more. There are many who would prefer that a book, especially a sympathetic book, stay unwritten. And there are others who want to expose Pan's darker secrets, information useful in a preemptive strike against this profligate billionaire who can threaten their hold on power—a situation they will go to murderous lengths to prevent.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, Rafferty is breathing water and sinking deeper in a sea of intrigue with each passing hour. The trouble multiplies when a missing young street friend of Miaow's reappears, needing Rafferty's help to protect an innocent village girl trapped in a baby-selling ring. Pushed ever closer to the abyss, Rafferty has one chance to get them all out alive. But to succeed, this foreigner must do the impossible—keep a cool Thai heart.

Set in the Thailand of today's headlines—a nation of unrest, political uncertainty, corruption, and tradition, where the future looks dangerously precarious—Breathing Water is the story of a deadly game in which the stakes are enormous and life is literally cheap. The most compelling Poke Rafferty thriller yet, it is a journey that goes beyond the illusion of order and stability into a world where a wrong turn can lead to chaos, and where love and courage may not be enough to hold back the darkness.

Read an excerpt from Breathing Water, and learn more about the book and author at Timothy Hallinan's website and blog. Breathing Water is the third Poke Rafferty thriller.

Hallinan has lived off and on in Southeast Asia for more than twenty years. The Fourth Watcher is the second of the Poke Rafferty novel of Bangkok that began in 2007 with A Nail Through the Heart.

The Page 69 Test: A Nail Through the Heart.

The Page 69 Test: The Fourth Watcher.

My Book, The Movie: The Fourth Watcher.

The Page 69 Test: Breathing Water.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David B. Williams' "Stories in Stone"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Stories in Stone: Travels through Urban Geology by David B. Williams.

About the book, from the publisher:

Within the fabric of every stone building is a wondrous story of geological origins, architectural aesthetics, and cultural history.

You probably don’t expect to make geological finds along the sidewalks of a major city, but when natural history writer David B. Williams looks at the stone masonry, façades, and ornamentations of buildings, he sees a range of rocks equal to any assembled by plate tectonics. In Stories in Stone, he introduces us to a three-and-a-half-billion-year-old rock called Morton gneiss that is the color of swirled pink-and-black taffy; a 1935 gas station made of petrified wood; and a fort in St. Augustine, Florida, that has withstood three hundred years of attacks and hurricanes, despite being made of a stone (coquina) that has the consistency of a granola bar.

Williams shows us why a white, fossil-rich limestone from Indiana became the only building stone to be used in all fifty states; how the construction of the granite Bunker Hill Monument in 1825 led to America’s first commercial railroad; and why Carrara marble—the favorite sculpting material of Michelangelo— warped so much after only nineteen years on a Chicago skyscraper that all forty-four thousand panels of the stone had to be replaced. From Brooklyn to Philadephia, from limestone to travertine, Stories in Stone will inspire readers to realize that, even in the most modern metropolis, evidence of our planet’s natural wonders can be found all around us in building stones that are far less ordinary than we might think at first glance.

Read descriptions of Stories in Stone's ten chapters, and learn more about the author and his work at David B. Williams' website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: Stories in Stone.

--Marshal Zeringue

Martin Meredith's ten books to read on Africa

Martin Meredith is a journalist, biographer, and historian who has written extensively on Africa and its recent history. His books include Mugabe and The Fate of Africa (UK title: The State of Africa).

Brian Schofield calls the latter "an epic survey of a continent gone wrong, starting from colonial independence after World War 2, to the present day. I cannot recommend it too highly - to be part of humanity in 2009, you have to try to understand Africa, and this book offers a tremendous guide to the whole tragic saga."

One book from Meredith's list of ten books to read on Africa:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Published in 1958, Achebe's portrait of traditional village culture in Nigeria during the colonial era is venerated as one of the great African novels of all time. Achebe's purpose here is not only to inform the outside world of Ibo culture, but to remind his own people of the value of their traditions.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sophie Littlefield's "A Bad Day for Sorry"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield.

About the book, from the publisher:

Stella Hardesty dispatched her abusive husband with a wrench shortly before her fiftieth birthday. A few years later, she’s so busy delivering home-style justice on her days off, helping other women deal with their own abusive husbands and boyfriends, that she barely has time to run her sewing shop in her rural Missouri hometown. Some men need more convincing than others, but it’s usually nothing a little light bondage or old-fashioned whuppin' can’t fix. Since Stella works outside of the law, she’s free to do whatever it takes to get the job done---as long as she keeps her distance from the handsome devil of a local sheriff, Goat Jones.

When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good husband, Roy Dean, it looks like an easy case. Until Roy Dean disappears with Chrissy’s two-year-old son, Tucker. Stella quickly learns that Roy Dean was involved with some very scary men, as she tries to sort out who’s hiding information and who’s merely trying to kill her. It’s going to take a hell of a fight to get the little boy back home to his mama, but if anyone can do it, it’s Stella Hardesty.

Sophie Littlefield possesses all the verve and confidence of a seasoned pro. This debut novel rings true at every heart-stopping turn, utterly bewitching us with its gutsy, compassionate voice and boasting some of the most captivating, complex characters in crime fiction today.

Read an excerpt from A Bad Day for Sorry and watch the video trailer.

Learn more about the book and author at Sophie Littlefield's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: A Bad Day for Sorry.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Randy Sue Coburn & Binx

The current feature at Coffee with a canine: Randy Sue Coburn & Binx.

I sent some questions to author Randy Sue Coburn about her coffee date with her terrier Binx and she turned the task of answering them--in essay form--to the dog. Read all about it.

Binx, named for the narrator of Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, claims to be an inspiration for a character in Coburn's new novel:

Not to brag, but one of the most interesting characters in her new book, "A Better View of Paradise," is a border terrier named Pip, who is a thinly disguised version of me. He performs some of my most clever tricks, like fetching toys by name and walking on his hind legs for treats. Whenever the other characters in this book get all torqued out by human problems, Pip is there to remind them of what really matters—food and love. I don’t mind being fictionalized. But even if I did, well, let’s just say it would be difficult for me to prove libel.

Read more about the book and author at Randy Sue Coburn's website.

See--Coffee with a canine: Randy Sue Coburn & Binx.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Eric Kurlander's "Living with Hitler"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Living with Hitler: Liberal Democrats in the Third Reich by Eric Kurlander.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book addresses key questions about liberal democrats and their activities in Germany from 1933 to the end of the Nazi regime. While it is commonly assumed that liberals fled their homeland at the first sign of jackboots, in reality most stayed. Some even thrived under Hitler, personally as well as professionally. Historian Eric Kurlander examines the motivations, hopes, and fears of liberal democrats—Germans who best exemplified the middle-class progressivism of the Weimar Republic—to discover why so few resisted and so many embraced elements of the Third Reich.

German liberalism was not only the opponent and victim of National Socialism, Kurlander suggests, but in some ways its ideological and sociological antecedent. That liberalism could be both has crucial implications for understanding the genesis of authoritarian regimes everywhere. Indeed, Weimar democrats’ prolonged reluctance to oppose the regime demonstrates how easily a liberal democracy may gradually succumb to fascism.

Learn more about Living With Hitler at the Yale University Press website.

Eric Kurlander is associate professor of history at Stetson University.

The Page 99 Test: Living with Hitler.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best magic books in an earlier America

Owen Davies, Reader in Social History at the University of Hertfordshire, has written extensively on the history of popular magic, witchcraft, and ghosts. His new book is Grimoires: A History of Magic Books.

For the Wall Street Journal, he named a five best list of books on magic in an earlier America.

One title on the list:

Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses
1857

The title is provocative, but of course Moses did not write the "Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses." The book (whose actual author is unknown) was based on ancient but enduring claims that Moses wrote down more divine knowledge than was contained in the first five books of the Hebrew bible. Like "The Long Lost Friend," it had its origins in late 18th-century Germany, and its first publication in the U.S. was targeted at the Pennsylvania Dutch. English-language editions appeared in 1880. The notion of ­Moses as an all-knowing African prophet and ­magician was a powerful one for ­African-Americans. They ­embraced the "Sixth and Seventh Book"—with its pseudo-Hebraic talismans and magical psalms—as a text that had long been withheld from them by the white establishment. Its reputation suffered in the early 20th century due to claims that it lay ­behind a spate of Pennsylvanian "hex murders," such as the case of the Reading blacksmith, Peter Leas, who chopped off a friend's head in 1916.

Read about another book on Davies' list.

Also see Davies' list of the top ten grimoires.

The Page 99 Test: Grimoires: A History of Magic Books by Owen Davies.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Barbara O’Neal reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Barbara O’Neal, author of The Lost Recipe for Happiness.

One book from her entry:

Veil of Roses, by Laura Fitzgerald. If I tell you the situation of this story: a young Iranian woman comes to the US for a fresh start, a chance to escape Iran—and her cloistered, claustrophobic life there—it might sound a little grim. In fact, it’s a fast paced, upbeat chronicle about Tamila Soroush. Her westernized parents lived in America when Tamila and her sister were small, and were trapped when the Shah was deposed. Especially considering all the news that’s been pouring out of Iran with the recent elections, I loved reading about what women’s lives are really like in a country that was—not very long ago—quite modern and has now returned to the dark ages. You can’t help but root for Tamila and pray that she finds a way to stay with her sister in Arizona, where she can “just sit in public at a coffee shop with a man and meet his eye” without fear of being hanged for it. One of my favorite...[read on]

Barbara Samuel O’Neal is an award-winning and beloved commercial fiction writer with more than 35 novels to her credit in many genres, including 6 highly acclaimed novels of women’s fiction. She has won two Colorado Center for the Book awards for commercial fiction, five prestigious RITA awards, and many others. She is a highly respected teacher of craft and inspirational subjects, and finds nourishment in the interaction with other writers. Her novel The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O’Neal, has gone to eight printings, and is a major release in Australia and Germany as well as the US. Her new book, The Secret of Everythings, will be published in January 2010.

Visit Barbara O’Neal's website.

Writers Read: Barbara O’Neal.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Steve Hockensmith's "The Crack in the Lens"

This weekend's feature at the Page 69 Test: The Crack in the Lens by Steve Hockensmith.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1893, Otto “Big Red” Amlingmeyer and his brother Gustav, “Old Red” find themselves in a situation that they never expected. They have a bit of money and time to do something other than scramble. It’s enough to confound even that most unconfoundable of men, their mutual inspiration, Sherlock Holmes.

So Old Red decides that it’s time for the for the two of them to head off to the Texas hill country, to San Marcos, and deal with the greatest tragedy of Old Red’s life. Five years ago, when Old Red was a cowpoke in San Marcos, he had a sweetheart—a fallen woman at the local house of ill repute. They had made plans but before they made their big move, his fiancée was murdered and the case swept under the rug by the local authorities. Now, Old Red is determined to find out what really happened and to finally find a measure of justice for his beloved. But Big Red and Old Red find themselves facing a wall of silence and in some of the worst situations of their lives: ensnared in a riot at the local cathouse, on the wrong end of a lynching party and perhaps worst of all—having to do the one thing you never want to do in the state of Texas: steal horses.

Read an excerpt from The Crack in the Lens, and visit Big Red's blog to learn more about Steve Hockensmith and his writing.

The Page 69 Test: On the Wrong Track.

My Book, The Movie: Holmes on the Range.

The Page 99 Test: The Black Dove.

The Page 69 Test: The Crack in the Lens.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about U.S. military history

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008. His latest book is The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.

For Foreign Policy, he named ten "books anyone interested in U.S. military history should read," including:

World War II
I think our best-written war. If you haven't, read these next two together:

Band of Brothers
by Stephen Ambrose.

With a company of the 101st Airborne from D-Day to the end of World War II. I was reading this book once aboard a Marine CH-53 flying off Bosnia, and the grizzled old sergeant running the helicopter saw the book and gave me two thumbs up. By the way, I think the HBO series based on this book is the best war movie ever made.

Catch-22
by Joseph Heller.

The flip side of the band of brothers: Someone is trying to kill me, even though I have done nothing to him. More of a military book than many remember. "Without realizing how it had come about," Heller writes, "the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them." Thus is it always.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sharon Potts' "In Their Blood," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: In Their Blood by Sharon Potts.

Potts cleverly framed her entry as an interview with her chosen director, Alfred Hitchcock:

I: Mr. Hitchcock, welcome. I understand you have agreed to produce and direct In Their Blood, based on the novel by the same name by Sharon Potts. After your long absence from the movie industry, what made you decide to return, and why did you choose In Their Blood for your long awaited reprise?

AH: Good evening. It feels like decades since a psychological suspense thriller has come to my attention, knocking on heaven’s gate, so to speak. I was intrigued by In Their Blood because it captured so many elements that I consider hallmarks of my own work—a seemingly ordinary family that, without warning, is swept into a nightmare, the psychological battle between perception and reality, and a relentless sense of impending doom.

I: Can you give us a thumbnail sketch of the plot?

AH: Certainly. Set in steamy, seductive, scam-ridden Miami, In Their Blood is the story of a brother and sister who are determined to find their parents’ murderer. In the process, they discover their mother and father are not the people they had believed them to be.

I: I realize that the parents don’t actually have a lot of screen time, but Rachel and D.C. Stroeb represent an important presence throughout the story. Who are you considering for their roles?

AH: Coming as I do from a place that knows no boundaries, I have the luxury of working with actors who transcend the inconvenience of the here and now. For the ill-fated Rachel and D.C. Stroeb, I am considering...[read on]

Read the prologue to In Their Blood, and learn more about the book and author at Sharon Potts' website.

Publishers Weekly called In Their Blood a “red-hot suspense novel” and gave it a starred review. New York Times best-selling author Michael Connelly said, “In Their Blood starts with a bang and never lets up. This is thriller writing the way it is supposed to be.”

My Book, The Movie: In Their Blood.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kathryn Casey's "Blood Lines"

This weekend's feature at the Page 99 Test: Blood Lines by Kathryn Casey.

About the book, from the publisher:

Readers loved Sarah Armstrong, the feisty and vulnerable profiler in Kathryn Casey’s first mystery, Singularity. She’s back in this second book in the series with her hands full with two cases at once: A persistent and potentially lethal stalker pursues pop mega-star Cassidy Collins, and a high-energy Houston businesswoman is found dead in her house.

Though the businesswoman’s death is being called a suicide, when Sarah is shown photographs of the scene, something seems off. It looks too perfect, almost staged, and Billie Cox apparently had every reason to live. The victim’s sister is convinced Billie was murdered and urges Sarah to take a closer look. During her investigation, Sarah uncovers a multimillion-dollar scam and traces a trail of greed to Billie’s murderer.

Meanwhile, teenage idol Cassidy receives threatening e-mails and text messages and hears creepy whispers over her headset at performances. Cassie’s next performance is at a Houston rodeo, for which her handlers request extra security. Sarah once again teams up with FBI agent David Garrity, and together they plot to outwit and capture the stalker, but at the concert the unthinkable happens....

Kathryn Casey spins a tight plot with memorable characters and great action scenes, while paying close attention to Sarah’s struggles as a widow and mother, to create a multilayered, exciting, and satisfying read.

Read an excerpt from Blood Lines, and learn more about the book and author at Kathryn Casey's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Singularity.

The Page 99 Test: Blood Lines.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on Detroit's car culture

Paul J. Ingrassia retired from The Wall Street Journal at the end of 2007, after 31 years. In 1993, as the Journal's Detroit bureau chief, Mr. Ingrassia won a Pulitzer Prize -- along with his deputy, Joseph B. White --for coverage of the prior year's crisis at General Motors. The two also won a Loeb Award. Messrs. Ingrassia and White co-authored Comeback: the Fall and Rise of the American Automobile Industry, published by Simon and Schuster in 1994.

His new book, Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster, is due out in January 2010.

Back in 2005 he named a five best list of books that capture Detroit's car culture, and America's.

One title on the list:

"The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby" by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965).

The California custom--er, kustom--car culture of the 1950s and 1960s and the rise of stock-car racing in the South (modern-day Nascar) come alive in this collection of essays. This isn't strictly a car book but instead a description of the post--World War II rise of popular culture--and the hallowed place of automobiles within its various strains. Thus we meet Southern stock-car legend Junior Johnson and California custom-car guru Ed Roth, among others. "Cars mean more to these kids than architecture did in Europe's great formal century, say, 1750 to 1850," writes Mr. Wolfe. "They are freedom, style, sex, power, motion, color--everything is right there."

Read about another book on Ingrassia's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Kate Buckley & Mac and Murphy

The current featured trio at Coffee with a Canine: Kate Buckley & Mac and Murphy.

The poet Kate Buckley is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed A Wild Region and the soon forthcoming Follow Me Down.

Mac and Murphy, her 4-year-old male Blenheim Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, "are awfully good at lying at one's feet when one is trying to make sense of a sonnet or wade through obscure Victoriana."

Among the praise for Buckley's A Wild Region:

"A ribbon of Appalachia winds through Kate Buckley’s vigorous voice in her debut collection of poems, A Wild Region. It was my pleasure to choose her as the winner of the 2008 James Hearst Poetry Prize for the North American Review, and it is an equal pleasure to welcome this book of poems, crafted from the patterns of speech of the wild region Buckley loves and the wildness of its people, too."
—Molly Peacock

Visit Kate Buckley's website to read selected poems and view some of her paintings.

Coffee with a Canine: Kate Buckley & Mac and Murphy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Nic Brown's "Floodmarkers"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Floodmarkers by Nic Brown.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lystra, North Carolina. A fictional town full of very real people who survive the attack of Hurricane Hugo and then find their bearings in the aftermath—often in wild and hilarious ways.

The days leading up to the impending disaster are not at all unusual—no portents of disaster, no signs of impending calamity. Bryce works his night shift at the hot dog factory, Isaac drives the bus to school, Evelyn attends a funeral. But when the electricity fails in the middle of the night on September 21, 1989, it marks the moment when everything will change: Hugo has arrived.

The storm builds, the wind whips by faster and faster, and interpersonal dramas, grudges, and rivalries are dredged up along with the flotsam and debris. Meanwhile, flood markers, painted red, track the height of the water from past rainstorms, and as the creek level rises higher than ever before, so do the emotions of the townspeople.

Alternating between weather forecasts and short stories, Floodmarkers is an exquisitely crafted day-in-the-life of a town. And as Nic Brown has us look bravely at the eye of the storm, he cleverly shows us that human nature can stir up a spectacular tempest all its own.

Learn more about Floodmarkers and the author at Nic Brown's website.

The Page 69 Test: Floodmarkers.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jim Noles reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Jim Noles, author of the newly released Mighty by Sacrifice: The Destruction of an American Bomber Squadron, August 29, 1944.

His entry begins:

I'm currently about seventy-five pages into Chip Brantley's The Perfect Fruit: Good Breeding, Bad Seeds, and the Search for the Elusive Pluot. What is a pluout, you ask? That is just one of the many questions answered in Chip's book, which has just been released by Bloomsbury. He had me hooked from his first sentence: "It was midsummer then, and I was twenty-seven, and over the course of one month I fell in love twice." To quote my wife, "Why can't you write like that, Jim?" Hey -- we all play the cards we were dealt. Anyway, I digress. Chip's book is great. After reading it, you'll take your next stroll down the fruit and produce aisle in your grocery with a newfound appreciation of the bounty...[read on]

Among the early praise for Mighty by Sacrifice:

"Mighty by Sacrifice brilliantly captures the sights, sounds, and fury of the bomber war in World War II. From the fast-paced action of pilots outmaneuvering strafing FW 190s to the adrenaline-charged stress of a tail gunner's position, this ground-breaking book puts the reader into the lethal skies of Central Europe in the summer of 1944."
--Patrick O'Donnell, author of We Were One, The Brenner Assignment and They Dared Return

"This is a great story that deserves to be told.... The authors do such a wonderful job of relating the terror and speed of aerial combat."
--Stephen L. McFarland, coauthor of To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air Superiority over Germany, 1942-1944

Read more about Jim Noles and his many books and articles at his website.

Writers Read: Jim Noles.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Susanne Alleyn's "The Cavalier of the Apocalypse"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Cavalier of the Apocalypse by Susanne Alleyn.

About the book:

In the icy winter of 1786, hunger, cold, and seething frustration with the iron grip of France’s absolute monarchy drive poor and rich alike to outright defiance. Slums, fashionable cafés, and even aristocratic mansions echo with discontent and the first warning signals of the approaching turmoil of 1789.

Paris’s cemeteries are foul and disease-ridden during the last decades of the eighteenth century, but no one, including penniless writer Aristide Ravel, expects to find a man with his throat cut lying dead in a churchyard, surrounded by strange Masonic symbols. Already suspected of stirring up the people’s anger by writing against the royal court, Ravel must now evade the ever-present police and clear his name of murder. His search for answers amid the city’s literary and intellectual demimonde--with the aid of friends who, he quickly learns, may not be all that they seem--leads him into a bewildering tangle of conspiracy, secret societies, royal scandal, and imminent revolution, which grows only more complex when the corpse disappears...

From the author of Game of Patience and A Treasury of Regrets comes the third Aristide Ravel historical mystery, a prequel steeped in the atmosphere of the brilliant, perilous world of Paris in the final years before the French Revolution.

Read the first chapters of The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, and learn more about the book and author at Susanne Alleyn's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Cavalier of the Apocalypse.

The Page 69 Test: The Cavalier of the Apocalypse.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Vincent Phillip Muñoz's "God and the Founders"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson by Vincent Phillip Muñoz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Did the Founding Fathers intend to build a “wall of separation” between church and state? Are public Ten Commandments displays or the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance consistent with the Founders’ understandings of religious freedom? In God and the Founders, Dr. Vincent Phillip Muñoz answers these questions by providing new, comprehensive interpretations of James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. By analyzing Madison’s, Washington’s, and Jefferson’s public documents, private writings, and political actions, Muñoz explains the Founders’ competing church-state political philosophies. Muñoz explores how Madison, Washington, and Jefferson agreed and disagreed by showing how their different principles of religious freedom would decide the Supreme Court’s most important First Amendment religion cases. God and the Founders answers the question, “What would the Founders do?” for the most pressing church-state issues of our time, including prayer in public schools, government support of religion, and legal burdens on individual’s religious conscience.

Read an excerpt from God and the Founders, and learn more about the book at the Cambridge University Press website.

Vincent Phillip Muñoz is a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame.

The Page 99 Test: God and the Founders.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten best children's cookbooks

The Independent came up with a ten best list of children's cookbooks.

One title on the list:

Cooking Italian with Kids by Liz Franklin

It's a truism that everybody loves pizza - especially kids. This is an excellent opportunity to take advantage of the phenomenon, and Liz Franklin's book will lead them past stuffed pasta parcels and to more exotic concoctions, such as sweet plum focaccia.

Read about another cookbook on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Ru Freeman reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Ru Freeman, author of the newly released debut novel, A Disobedient Girl.

Her entry begins:

I usually read several books at the same time as most writers do, but rarely are they as different from each other as the three I am reading now.

The first one is Preeta Samarasan's Evening Is the Whole Day, a novel set in Malaysia which has received a great deal of critical acclaim particularly in the sphere of international awards for fiction. I bought the book because Preeta is a friend, and friends don't let friends' work languish on shelves. I looked forward to reading it because of what I knew about her, but I love this book for what she has done with her material as a writer. One of the things that is most difficult for a writer composing in English to accomplish, is the business of communicating the cultural inflections and specificities of a foreign language without letting that task - which, in the end, is usually secondary to the fiction - overwhelm the story. I have never read a book by a writer from South/SouthEast Asia in which this has been done with the degree of success that Preeta achieves in her novel. Not only am I immersed deeply and variously in the interior and exterior realities of her characters, I am equally seamlessly engaged in looking at the world through their very specific linguistic expression of their lives. There are moments in the book where Preeta's lyricism interferes with this otherwise beautifully rendered novel, where I find myself dwelling on the beauty of a line of prose and remembering its author, but it is forgivable in a writer whose command...[read on]

Ru Freeman has worked in the field of American and international humanitarian assistance and workers’ rights. Her political writing has appeared in English and in translation. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Guernica, Story Quarterly, Crab Orchard Review, WriteCorner Press, Kaduwa and elsewhere and has been nominated for the Best New American Voices anthologies in 2006 and 2008.

Read an excerpt from A Disobedient Girl, and learn more about the book and author at Ru Freeman's website and blog.

Among the praise for A Disobedient Girl:

“Evocative and moving. Ru Freeman is a marvelous storyteller who sees deeply into the complex layers of compassion and love, of sorrow and betrayal. An amazing first novel.”
—Ursula Hegi, author of Stones From The River and The Worst Thing I Have Done

“A Disobedient Girl is a vivid and captivating story of three lives at once joined and separated by class. An excellent debut.”
—Laila Lalami, author of Secret Son and Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits

Writers Read: Ru Freeman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten literary teenagers

Will Davis' first novel, My Side of the Story, was published in 2007 and took that year's Betty Trask prize. His new book is Dream Machine.

For the Guardian, he named a top ten list of literary teenagers. One teen on the list:

Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

For many people Holden Caulfield is the ultimate literary teenage creation – but 19-year-old Esther Greenwood must surely run a close second. Brutal, frank and moving, it is impossible not to read her disaffected journey and think of Plath herself.

Read about another teen on Davis' list.

Related: The first sentence of The Bell Jar--“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” --is Ali Smith's favorite opening line of a novel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Carleen Brice's "Children of the Waters"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Children of the Waters by Carleen Brice.

About the book, from the publisher:

Still reeling from divorce and feeling estranged from her teenage son, Trish Taylor is in the midst of salvaging the remnants of her life when she uncovers a shocking secret: her sister is alive. For years Trish believed that her mother and infant sister had died in a car accident. But the truth is that her mother fatally overdosed and that Trish’s grandparents put the baby girl up for adoption because her father was black.

After years of drawing on the strength of her black ancestors, Billie Cousins is shocked to discover that she was adopted. Just as surprising, after finally overcoming a series of health struggles, she is pregnant–a dream come true for Billie but a nightmare for her sweetie, Nick, and for her mother, both determined to protect Billie from anything that may disrupt her well-being.

Visit Carleen Brice's website.

Read an excerpt from Children of the Waters, and learn more about the author and her work at Carleen Brice's website and her blogs, White Readers Meet Black Authors and The Pajama Gardener.

The Page 69 Test: Children of the Waters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: William Patry's "Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars by William Patry.

About the book, from the publisher:

Metaphors, moral panics, folk devils, Jack Valenti, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, predictable irrationality, and free market fundamentalism are a few of the topics covered in this lively, unflinching examination of the Copyright Wars: the pitched battles over new technology, business models, and most of all, consumers.

In Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars , William Patry lays bare how we got to where we are: a bloated, punitive legal regime that has strayed far from its modest, but important roots. Patry demonstrates how copyright is a utilitarian government program--not a property or moral right. As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable to ensure it is serving its public purpose. Just as Wall Street must serve Main Street, neither can copyright be left to a Reaganite "magic of the market."

The way we have come to talk about copyright--metaphoric language demonizing everyone involved--has led to bad business and bad policy decisions. Unless we recognize that the debates over copyright are debates over business models, we will never be able to make the correct business and policy decisions.

A centrist and believer in appropriately balanced copyright laws, Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely: the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning. Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives, leading to bad conduct. Just as President Obama has called for re-tooling and re-imagining the auto industry, Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected.

Learn more about the book at the Oxford University Press website and at the Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars blog.

The Page 99 Test: Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten Elvis Presley books

Robert Fontenot, Jr. is an entertainment critic and journalist, and the About.com guide to oldies music.

Two books from his top 10 list of Elvis Presley books:

"Last Train To Memphis" and "Careless Love," Peter Guralnick

The best of the in-depth attempts to understand Elvis as all things to all people, Guralnick's two-volume, 1600-page monster (the post-Army Careless Love being the second half) offers painstaking (and sometimes painful) detail on what life the King was, in fact, leading while worshipped from afar. Sort of a rise-and-fall tale that substitutes The Pelvis for the Roman Empire, and often cited as the greatest rock and roll biograohy ever written, it's a must for any Elvis fan.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Craig Johnson's "The Dark Horse"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Walt Longmire goes undercover to save a woman in an unfriendly place

Interweaving classic noir sensibilities and humor with contemporary themes of social justice, Craig Johnson’s popular Walt Longmire mysteries transport readers to the sparse and rugged landscape of Wyoming. In The Dark Horse, the sheriff investigates when his instincts tell him something isn’t right about a prisoner accused of killing her husband.

Wade Barsad, a man with a dubious past, locked his wife’s horses in their barn and burned the animals alive. In return, Mary shot Wade in the head six times—or so the story goes. Walt doesn’t believe Mary’s confession, and he’s determined to dig deeper. Posing as an insurance claims investigator, Walt soon discovers other people who might have wanted Wade dead, including a beautiful Guatemalan bartender and a rancher with a taste for liquor, but not for honesty.

The Dark Horse is sure to build on the success of Another Man’s Moccasins as Sheriff Longmire unpins his star and ventures into a town without pity to save a woman without hope.

The previous Walt Longmire mysteries are The Cold Dish, Death Without Company, Kindness Goes Unpunished and Another Man’s Moccasins.

Read an excerpt from The Dark Horse, and learn more about the author and his work at Craig Johnson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Kindness Goes Unpunished.

My Book, The Movie: The Cold Dish.

The Page 69 Test: The Dark Horse.

--Marshal Zeringue

Susanne Alleyn's "The Cavalier of the Apocalypse," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Cavalier of the Apocalypse by Susanne Alleyn.

The entry begins:

Oh goody! I’ve been indulging myself with fantasy casting ever since I began writing the Aristide Ravel historical mysteries back in 2002. So, the dream cast of the movie (or, more likely, the classy BBC TV adaptation--they do costume stuff so well) of the latest novel in the series, The Cavalier of the Apocalypse:

My absolute, only choice for 18th-century Parisian sleuth Aristide Ravel is Adrien Brody. I’d never actually heard of him until I was halfway through writing Game of Patience, the first published novel in the series. I’d finally found a DVD of The Affair of the Necklace, which is the (mostly) true story of an elaborate scam that made headlines in 1785 and didn’t help the reputation of the French royals as history lurched its way toward the Revolution. (The mystery in The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, by the way, happens to have a good deal to do with the historical Diamond Necklace Affair.) Halfway through the movie, Brody turns up (in 18th-century costume, of course) as a sleazy but dashing adventurer. I nearly shouted “That’s Aristide!” And then, “Who is this guy?”

A few months later, of course, Adrien Brody became much more famous with The Pianist and his subsequent Academy Award. But he has always been my first choice for playing Ravel. Tall, lanky, dark, with one of those wonderful aquiline noses that are so ubiquitous among the French, and with a distinctly European look to him, he is, physically, exactly right, and he could also carry off Ravel’s somberness, sensitivity, sharp intelligence, and occasional dry wit impeccably.

OK, if Adrien Brody weren’t available, I could live with...[read on]

Read the first chapters of The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, and learn more about the book and author at Susanne Alleyn's website.

Although The Cavalier of the Apocalypse is the newest installment in the Aristide Ravel historical mystery series and each novel may be read as a stand-alone, it is a prequel to Game of Patience and A Treasury of Regrets, and readers new to the series will ideally read it first.

My Book, The Movie: The Cavalier of the Apocalypse.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Scott Ward reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Scott Ward, poet and Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Eckerd College.

His entry begins:

Sometimes I think that Contemporary American Poetry is American culture’s best kept secret. There are so many talented poets writing today, producing work for readers of every taste and temperament. And yet, for some reason, poets and readers have a hard time finding each other. Perhaps one day some clever, technologically adept person will contrive some sort of personal ads to put Twitter poets and readers into each other’s company: “Seeking neo-romantic poet with startling vocabulary and sensuous imagery.” In the meantime, I will take this opportunity to pander by sharing four books from my recent reading, each of which should make someone out there a faithful, worthwhile companion.

A Murmuration of Starlings by Jake Adam York is an exquisite book of poems. It takes for its subject the Civil Rights struggle of the mid twentieth century. Two key events recounted are the murder of Emmitt Till and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. “Substantiation,” the poem about the Till murder, is a series of lyric poems, which are shorter pieces, subjective, and elegiac in tone. But arranged together the poems tell the story of the trial of the killers, Bryant and Milam, and its aftermath. This structure allows York to take advantage of narrative elements such as conflict, character, climax, while the short sections create moments of lyric intensity:

They say they took him for a ride to rough him up,

scare him on a river bluff, then let him go.

They say they let him off near Glendora,

never seen again. They say Ain’t it like a negro

to swim the river with a gin fan round his neck.

This book creates...[read on]

Scott Ward has published poems in Shenandoah, Southern Humanities Review, Washington Square, Blue Mesa Review, Christian Century, and in anthologies such as Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry and American Poetry: The Next Generation. His published collections include Crucial Beauty and Wayward Passages.

Learn more about Scott Ward and his poetry--and read several of his poems--at his faculty website.

Writers Read: Scott Ward.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: books on food and cooking

Raymond Sokolov writes the "Eating Out" column for the Wall Street Journal's weekend edition.

In 2005 he named a five best list of books about food and cooking.

One title on the list:

"On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" by Harold McGee (Scribner, 2004).

C.E. (Engine Charlie) Wilson, head of General Motors and defense secretary under President Eisenhower, once dismissed scientific research as an activity that explains why grass is green and fried potatoes turn brown in the pan. He didn't know the half of it. Harold McGee devotes several pellucid pages to the chemistry of browning and why it has helped fast food and three-star chefs alike to addict the world to fries. Mr. McGee is the go-to guru for answers to such kitchen questions as why vaporized grease collects only on the inside of eyeglasses or why Chinese cooks cook meat in soy sauce combined with star anise and onions ("the production of sulfur-phenolic aromatics ... intensify the meatiness of the dish").

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Erick Setiawan's "Of Bees and Mist"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Raised in a sepulchral house where ghosts dwell in mirrors, Meridia grows up lonely and miserable. But at age sixteen, she has a chance at happiness when she falls in love with Daniel-a caring and naive young man. Soon they marry, and Meridia can finally escape to live with her husband's family, unaware that they harbor dark secrets of their own. There is a grave hidden in the garden, there are two sisters groomed from birth to despise each other, and there is Eva-the formidable matriarch and the wickedest mother-in-law imaginable-whose grievances swarm the air in an army of bees. As Meridia struggles to keep her life and marriage together, she discovers long-buried secrets about her own past as well as shocking truths about her new family that inexorably push her love, courage, and sanity to the brink.

Of Bees and Mist is an engrossing fable that chronicles three generations of women under one family tree over a period of thirty years-their galvanic love and passion, their shifting alliances, their superstitions and complex domestic politics-and places them in a mythical town where spirits and spells, witchcraft and demons, and prophets and clairvoyance are an everyday reality. Erick Setiawan's astonishing debut is a richly atmospheric and tumultuous ride of hope and heartbreak that is altogether touching, truthful, and entirely memorable.

Read an excerpt from Of Bees and Mist, and learn more about the book and Erick Setiawan at the official Of Bees and Mist website.

The Page 69 Test: Of Bees and Mist.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Bill Streever's "Cold"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places by Bill Streever.

About the book, from the publisher:

From avalanches to glaciers, from seals to snowflakes, and from Shackleton's expedition to "The Year Without Summer," Bill Streever journeys through history, myth, geography, and ecology in a year-long search for cold--real, icy, 40-below cold. In July he finds it while taking a dip in a 35-degree Arctic swimming hole; in September while excavating our planet's ancient and not so ancient ice ages; and in October while exploring hibernation habits in animals, from humans to wood frogs to bears.

A scientist whose passion for cold runs red hot, Streever is a wondrous guide: he conjures woolly mammoth carcasses and the ice-age Clovis tribe from melting glaciers, and he evokes blizzards so wild readers may freeze--limb by vicarious limb.

Read an excerpt from Cold, and learn more about the book and author at Bill Streever's website.

The Page 99 Test: Cold.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on the pleasures & hazards of drink

Iain Gately's books include Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization and Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol.

For the Wall Street Journal he named a five best list of books on the pleasures and hazards of drink.

One title on the list:

Under the Volcano
by Malcolm Lowry
Penguin, 1947

Malcolm Lowry wrote of this novel: “The dream I cherished in my heart was to create a pioneer work ... and to write at last an authentic drunkard’s story.” He ­succeeded—it is amusing, ­poignant and macabre. Lowry sobered up to write the book, which is set in a provincial Mexican town during its annual festival celebrating the dead. The story describes the last days of Geoffrey Firmin, a ­British diplomat who had been posted to this backwater so that he can kill himself, with mescal, discreetly. “Under the Volcano” offers vivid descriptions of what it feels like to be under the influence, including the dubious pleasure of ­vomiting in your neighbor’s garden and the shame of ­being incontinent and legless. ­Moreover, the novel shows great literary merit as Lowry plays with our sense of time, intercutting flashbacks and black-outs in stream-of-semiconsciousness. Above all, Lowry is a sympathetic observer of humanity, sober or not.

Read about the oldest book on Gately's list.

The Page 99 Test: Iain Gately's Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol.

--Marshal Zeringue