Kirkus Star
THE KIRKUS STAR
Awarded to Books of Exceptional Merit

BROWSE BOOK REVIEWS




New & Notable Fiction: October 2012


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Cover art for THE RIME OF THE MODERN MARINER
FICTION
Released: Oct. 29, 2012

"More than a classic-comics adaptation, this is an original work of art."
A visually arresting and verbally cadenced transformation of the Coleridge classic into a timely (and timeless) eco-apocalyptic fable. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE STOCKHOLM OCTAVO
FICTION
Released: Oct. 23, 2012

"The setup is wonderfully engrossing; the denouement doesn't deliver quite enough. But this is stylish work by an author of real promise."
Elegant and multifaceted, Engelmann's debut explores love and connection in late-18th-century Sweden and delivers an unusual, richly imagined read. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE MIDDLESTEINS
FICTION
Released: Oct. 23, 2012

"A sharp-tongued, sweet-natured masterpiece of Jewish family life."
From Attenberg (The Melting Season, 2010, etc.), the deeply satisfying story of a Chicago family coming apart at the seams and weaving together at the same time. Read full book review >
Cover art for BACK TO BLOOD
FICTION
Released: Oct. 23, 2012

"Full of stereotyping and waspishness, sure, but a welcome pleasure from an old master and the best from his pen in a long while."
Wolfe (A Man in Full, 1998, etc.) returns to fine form with this zingy, mile-a-minute novel of life in the weird confines of Miami. Read full book review >
Cover art for ZOO TIME
FICTION
Released: Oct. 16, 2012

"Guy's not a lucky guy, to be sure, but if there's justice, Jacobson will enjoy best-sellerdom in his place with this latest romp."
Bad-boy funnyman Jacobson waxes pensive and topical--but no less mirthful--in his latest assault on the foibles of modern life. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE BONE BED
FICTION
Released: Oct. 16, 2012

"An ingenious murder method, more hours in the mortuary and forensics lab than usual, an uncharacteristically muffled killer, and all the trademark battles among the regulars and every potential ally who gets in their way."
Having survived brushes with ruthless killers, human monsters and treacherous colleagues of every stripe (Red Mist, 2011, etc.), forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta limps into her 20th case to encounter more of the same. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE ELEMENTALS
FICTION
Released: Oct. 16, 2012

"Well-paced and lushly written."
Silver rings, a profusion of flowers, hazy graveyards and perhaps the fae embroider this hypnotic tale. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE NEWS FROM SPAIN
FICTION
Released: Oct. 11, 2012

"Short stories don't get much better than this, and for once, the overarching framework strengthens rather than dissipates their effectiveness."
Elegantly structured, emotionally compelling fiction from novelist/memoirist Wickersham (The Suicide Index, 2008, etc.). Read full book review >
Cover art for THE HYDROGEN SONATA
FICTION
Released: Oct. 9, 2012

"Sheer delight."
Addition to Banks' wonderful space-opera series (without the middle initial, he also writes impressive mainstream novels) about the far-future galactic Culture (Surface Detail, 2010, etc.), a liberal-anarchic, multispecies civilization guided and sustained, more or less invisibly, by Minds, artificial intelligences that take such physical forms as spaceships and habitats. Read full book review >
Cover art for ILLUMINATIONS
FICTION
Released: Oct. 9, 2012

"The ideal companion to the elevation of Hildegard by the pontiff who rebuked American nuns for their outspokenness, an irony the saint herself might have relished."
A fictionalized biography of medieval mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Its publication will coincide with her appointment as a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict. Read full book review >
Cover art for BUILDING STORIES
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"A dazzling document, beautifully if most idiosyncratically drawn; in this iteration, sure to become a collector's item, though one that begs for an easier-to-handle trade edition."
A treasure trove of graphic artworks--they're too complex to be called comics--from Ware, master of angst, alienation, sci-fi and the crowded street. Read full book review >
Cover art for IN SUNLIGHT AND IN SHADOW
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"A fine adult love story--not in the prurient sense, but in the sense of lovers elevated from smittenness to all the grown-up problems that a relationship can bring."
Elegant, elegiac novel of life in postwar America, at once realistic and aspirational, by the ever-accomplished Helprin (A Soldier of the Great War, 1991, etc.). Read full book review >
Cover art for BETWEEN TWO FIRES
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill."
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France. Read full book review >
Cover art for MR. PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"From the shadows of Penumbra's bookshelves to the brightly lit constellation of cyberspace to the depths of a subterranean library, Sloan deftly wields the magicks (definitely with a "k") of the electronic and the literary in this intricate mystery."
All the best secrets are hidden in plain sight. The trick is to notice the secret in front of you. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE ISLAND OF SECOND SIGHT
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"Worthy of a place alongside On the Marble Cliffs, Berlin Alexanderplatz, The Death of Virgil and other modernist German masterworks; a superb, sometimes troubling work of postwar fiction, deserving the widest possible audience."
A vast novel--if novel it is--of the tangled lives of anti-Nazi Germans on the Spanish island of Majorca in the years leading up to World War II. Read full book review >
Cover art for KIND ONE
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"Profoundly imaginative, strikingly original, deeply moving. "
The dark, silent, forbidding Ohio River flows like a line of moral demarcation in Hunt's (The Exquisite, 2006, etc.) latest literary foray. Read full book review >
Cover art for LIVE BY NIGHT
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"Power, lust and moral ambiguity combine for an all-American explosion of fictional fireworks."
The acclaimed mystery writer again tries his hand at historical fiction, combining period detail from the Prohibition era with the depth of character and twists of plot that have won him such a devoted readership. Read full book review >
Cover art for MY LAST EMPRESS
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
by Da Chen

"A lyrical tale of crossed borders, boundaries and destinies, expertly told."
Nabokov meets Dream of the Red Chamber. Read full book review >
Cover art for PEACHES FOR FATHER FRANCIS
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"A slow buildup to a breathtaking finish."
Eight years after the events in Harris' best-selling Chocolat (1999, etc.), her heroine is summoned back to the French village she once revitalized with confections. Read full book review >
Cover art for PHANTOM
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"Where earlier novels provide a better introduction to Hole, this one best takes the full measure of the man."
The internationally popular detective series by the Norwegian author builds to a blockbuster climax. Read full book review >