SWEEPING NOVEL of 40 years in the rock-band business has tons of insider detail, but old-fashioned prose style. SOLID B

EVENING’S EMPIRE
Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
2010

GRIM, ABSORBING, concise novel depicts a quiet and unstoppable apocalypse. Terrifying in its matter-of-factness. B PLUS

HATER
St. Martin’s Press
2009

FOLKSY FABLE of family secrets in upstate New York recalls early John Irving, Carolyn Chute but lacks oomph. SOLID B

THE LITTLE GIANT OF ABERDEEN COUNTY
Grand Central Publishing
2010

ZIPPY CAPER NOVEL combines salty characters, snappy dialogue, tight plot. Fast-paced Elmore Leonard-esque fun! A MINUS

GUTSHOT STRAIGHT
William Morrow
2010

ODDLY CHARMING little book from Margaret Drabble combines family memoir with a history of jigsaw puzzles. B PLUS

THE PATTERN IN THE CARPET: A PERSONAL HISTORY WITH JIGSAWS
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
2009

INTENSE, CHILLING, brilliant novel about a young boy obsessed with his uncle’s murder by a serial child-killer. A MINUS

BLACKLANDS
Simon & Schuster
2010

ZANY AND INFORMATIVE little guide to “wicked plants”: the poisonous, carnivorous, invasive and/or illegal kind. B PLUS

WICKED PLANTS: THE WEED THAT KILLED LINCOLN’S MOTHER AND OTHER BOTANICAL ATROCITIES
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
2009

DREAMY, IDIOSYNCRATIC, and often very funny memoir of a US writer’s year spent studying Hindi in India. B PLUS

DREAMING IN HINDI
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
2009

PREPOSTEROUS, YET COMPULSIVELY READABLE thriller about a writer who discovers her husband’s deadly secrets. SOLID B

DIE FOR YOU
Shaye Areheart Books
2009

ENTHRALLING TRUE STORY of the Allied troops who worked to save Italy’s art and architectural treasures in WWII. A MINUS

THE VENUS FIXERS: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF THE ALLIED SOLDIERS WHO SAVED ITALY’S ART DURING WORLD WAR II
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2009