THRILL-A-MINUTE SUSPENSE in delightfully chilling conspiracy page-turner; really works, despite its odd premise.

STYLISH, ATMOSPHERIC mystery with a Manhattan setting: compelling, if mildly improbable. Impressive first novel!

LESBIAN SLEUTH/RESTAURATEUR Jane Lawless’s 18th outing offers tensely plotted scenes, but too much backstory.

EXTRAORDINARY NOVEL: part thriller, part science fiction, part time travel, part historical, totally original.

QUEEN OF SPIES (spy thrillers, anyway) Gayle Lynds’s tensely plotted adventure focuses on a legendary library.

STANDARD LAD-LIT schlub’s breakup ‘n’ makeover story told crisply, engagingly, but nothing new here. SOLID B

THE EX-BOYFRIEND’S HANDBOOK
Sourcebooks Landmark
2010

CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT new Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries? If so, Jill Paton Walsh’s continuations will delight. SOLID B

ATTENBURY EMERALDS
Minotaur Books
2011

SOLID THRILLER gets extra pizzazz from its vividly-presented setting: a fancy New York fertility clinic. SOLID B

HUSH by Kate White
New York: HarperCollins
March, 2010

ROMAN HISTORY AS THRILLER! Robert Harris does it right, dramatizing Cicero’s struggle against Pompey and Caesar. B PLUS

CONSPIRATA: A NOVEL OF ANCIENT ROME by Robert Harris
New York: Simon and Schuster
February 2010

SPOOKY TALE outlines a grim near-future in spare, simple language reminiscent of Palahniuk, early Stephen King. A MINUS

THE SUICIDE COLLECTORS by David Oppegaard
New York: St. Martin’s Press
December 2008