New novels take readers to school, Italy

Was this spring a quiet season for fiction? We review several first novels, but only a few of the big authors came out to play. And one of those — John Grisham — disappointed with his latest tome, "The Broker," which reads more like an Italian travelogue than the heart-pounding thrillers readers are used to from him.

But some of the new names on the shelf produced works that delighted us. Curtis Sittenfeld's "Prep" conjures up high school memories so fresh it's as if the ink on her yearbook just dried. Despite a silly concept, Dean Bakopoulos’ "Please Don't Come Back from the Moon" reveals a promising new voice. And while Elizabeth Hickey's "The Painted Kiss" bears more than a little resemblance to "Girl with a Pearl Earring," Hickey takes her characters well into old age and brings them effectively off of the canvas.

Mysterious ‘Almond Picker’

Farrar, Straus And Giroux

While most mystery stories ask the question, “Who done it?” Simonetta Argnello Hornby’s new novel, “The Almond Picker” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $23) asks the question, “Who was she?” The “she” in question is Maria Rosalia Inzerillo, known as Mennulara, who went from humble almond picker to practically running the wealthy Alfallipe family fortune. Yet after her death, no one seems to know how or why she came to have so much power and money. And why, after her death, does she suddenly seem to be making demands from beyond the grave?

The book is a good yarn, told in an old-fashioned almost Dickensian fashion, with colorful characters who seem a little comic in comparison to the dark secrets that comprise our main character’s life. The Alfallipe family is drawn with broad strokes — their main goal is to try and figure out whether Mennulara  has left them any money. The commentary on class here is entertaining, as the townspeople are scandalized when the Alfallipe family puts an obituary in the paper for one of their servants. The town becomes a character in the book, as the story of Mennulara is passed from person to person, with each character adding

My problem with the novel is beyond that central mystery, there’s just not much more to the book. While enjoyable, the characters are so broadly drawn that none of them really stay with you. Ultimately, solving the mystery just wasn’t enough to satisfy this reader.    —Paige Newman

If it ain’t broke

Doubleday

Is there a better author for airplane reading than John Grisham? Have you ever taken a plane trip without seeing half the people in the airport clutching a Grisham tome? I tucked his latest, "The Broker," (Doubleday, $28) in my backpack when I took off on a recent cross-country flight.

Yet despite two long layovers and four flights, I wasn't inspired to finish "The Broker" until all of my other reading material was exhausted. It's not that the book isn't a lively read, Grisham's got the detail and pacing down, as always. But the story meanders in a way that I don't remember ever facing in, say, "The Firm."

"The Broker" is Joel Backman, who's whisked out of jail and off to Italy, where the CIA plans to guard him (but not too well) and wait until another assassin kills him, hoping that will tell them about Backman's secret (a rather dull plot about spy satellites). So now we're in Italy, where surely any minute the chase will begin, right? Well, no, but Italy sure is beautiful.  And the food? Delicious! So here we sit, for what seems like a year, while almost nothing in the traditional Grisham worlds of spying and double-crossing and murdering happens. We're still in Italy. (Did you know Bologna was once described as "a bed of asparagus" due to its towers?) Yep, still. Italy.

Even when the plot finally picks itself up (sated, from an Italian coffeehouse table), Grisham feels a bit off-track. We learn a great deal about how Backman and his son keep their e-mail correspondence secret, but readers can be forgiven if, by the end of the book, they're still not really sure what Backman's crime was, and with whom he was involved.

Good airplane reading? Better than most, not as good as Grisham at his best. But if you're flying to Italy, you might be able to use it as a guidebook.    —Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

Dismal debut

Dial Press

When a debut novel isn’t very good, it’s easy to chalk it up to inexperience. Bill Gordon bites off a pretty big time span in his debut novel, “Mary After All” (The Dial Press, $23), following Mary Nolan through her teenage years, marriage and middle age in Jersey City. That’s a lot of ground to cover in 274 pages.

It’s a tough assignment for a man to sketch a female character convincingly, though many, including Russell Banks, have done it well. I never quite bought Mary Nolan, who constantly seems to be praising her own appearance, including admiring her own legs. I know women who think they’re good looking, but Mary seems strangely vain in a way that doesn’t fit in with her character.

There’s an odd self-conscious writing in the novel, where Mary talks about “skipping ahead” or “getting back” to details. I’m never sure why Gordon does this; it’s distracting and gives the novel a scattered feel.

But what really bothered me about the novel is that Gordon races by what could have been an interesting story. He has a brief chapter where Mary becomes a bookmaker and I love the idea of this collection of Jersey City housewives playing the numbers. That in itself seems like a great basis for a novel, but instead Gordon just lets it drop in favor of the less interesting story of Mary’s marriage.

I just didn’t care enough about Mary Nolan or her life to feel truly engaged in this novel. If the story had been more compelling or focused on something more unique — like the numbers running — I might have been more inclined to enjoy the ride.   —P.N.

Little boy lost

Bloomsbury

Since the success of “The Lovely Bones,” it seems like voices from beyond the grave are everywhere in our culture — even narrating one of the most popular shows on TV, “Desperate Housewives.” In Liz Jensen’s latest novel, “The Ninth Life of Louis Drax” (Tin House Books/Bloomsbury, $24), little nine-year-old Louis isn't dead; instead he’s in a deep coma as a result of a mysterious cliff fall. Yet, even from that state, he still narrates half the book.

Jensen does a great job of creating Louis and making his point of view seem realistically like a nine-year-old boy. Louis sees his life in the fact-based manner that most kids view theirs. He knows that the kids call him Wacko Boy in school. He knows that he’s considered “highly disturbed.” Yet, these facts aren’t presented melodramatically; instead they’re given to the reader in a child’s straightforward manner. Louis says of pet ownership, “Here’s a secret rule of pet-keeping. If you own a small creature, say a hamster called Mohammed, and he lives for longer than a small rodent’s lifespan, which is two years, then you’re allowed to kill him if you want to, because you’re his owner.”

Louis alternates chapters with Dr. Pascal Dannachet, a coma specialist, who, though married, finds himself drawn to Louis’ mom Natalie. At heart, this is a mystery story: What happened to Louis? Yet, Jensen wisely raises more questions with every step toward the answer. There is a supernatural element to the novel, which could have been distracting, but it seems to work here, in part because Jensen keeps the story fully grounded in character. Like Dr. Dannachet, we too are drawn into Natalie and Louis’ strange world.     —P.N.

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