THRILLERS

Six Bad Things

By Charlie Huston (Ballantine Books, $12.95).

Grade: A-

Henry Thompson, the erstwhile hero of this story, is a wanted man. A very wanted man.

In his appearance in Huston's previous book, Caught Stealing, Henry agreed to take care of a neighbor's cat, only to find himself tortured, forced to kill people to stay alive and in the possession of $4 million that belongs to some nasty Russian mobsters. The police, federal agents and Russians were all after him.

Now, Henry has retreated to a quiet spot on the beach in Mexico. His life is as pleasant as possible while dealing with rampant paranoia. He has a nice little bungalow, part interest in a beach bar, a cat to keep him company and millions under his floorboards.

Then a Russian shows up and starts quietly asking questions about him. Henry knows he has been found out, and he plans on making himself scarce - until forced to kill the Russian after the man threatens Henry's parents.

With the money boxed and shipped FedEx and the local police after him, Henry manages to sneak back into the United States, where he instantly has a menagerie of progressively more violent greedheads after him for the money. Throughout the story, he'll be forced to dodge the feds, the Russians, a threatening securities broker, a steroid-abusing dope dealer, crazed surfer dudes and a 200-pound mastiff.

Henry is one of those guys who stumble through life trailing a pitch-black cloud, but he's a survivor - which is more than can be said for those who come under his cloud with him.

Henry Thompson is a likable enough companion - even if he causes many bloody messes, intentionally or not. What's more, he ingests massive amounts of drugs and cigarettes, which makes him a survivor of more than mere homicidal maniacs. In the end, it means only one thing: Six Bad Things makes for one good read.

- Peter Mergendahl

MYSTERY

To the Power of Three

By Laura Lippman (Morrow, $24.95).

Grade: A

How could it happen here?

After a school shooting, the big questions often go unanswered. But Baltimore author Laura Lippman provides a finely detailed and nuanced reply in her latest novel, To the Power of Three.

The answers she offers are never simple or easy, and her scathing examination of the adults who failed the young victims in this book makes it more than just an entertaining crime novel.

Friends since grade school, Perri Kahn, Kat Hartigan and Josie Patel are stars at their suburban school. But a rift in their friendship during senior year mystifies their parents and friends, and, unexplained, festers until right before graduation. Reports that Perri has killed Kat and injured Josie before shooting herself in the head boggle the imagination - no one can believe that these girls, successful in every way, are involved in a shooting.

To the police officers assigned to the case, there's something not quite right about the scene of the crime in a girls' bathroom at the school or about Josie's explanations. The resulting story, part police procedural, part psychological novel, provides a changing point of view that opens up the lives of the girls, their families and their community. Lippman never shies away from the emotional complexities, deeply buried, that combine in tragedy.

Lippman has been building her reputation as a top mystery author with a series featuring Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan, who stumbles on murders the way the rest of us stumble over shoes somebody left in the hall. With this latest non-series novel, Lippman clearly joins the ranks of the most important and best American crime writers.

- Jane Dickinson

UNREAL WORLDS

Olympos

By Dan Simmons (Eos, $25.95).

Grade: A-

Longmont author Dan Simmons may be the most respected - and the most infuriating - science-fiction writer alive.

On one hand, almost single-handedly, Simmons has proven that the science-fiction genre and the classics can work hand-in-hand. In many of his stories, typical science-fiction tropes are sprinkled with references and characters from authors such as John Keats, Geoffrey Chaucer, Marcel Proust and William Shakespeare.

But, at times, the author almost makes readers want to scream - such as when they read lengthy books like the 1990 Hugo-Award-winning Hyperion or last year's Locus-award-winning Ilium, and discover that the book tells only half the story and they will have to wait a couple of years for the conclusion.

If you've been waiting since 2003 to find out what happens in Simmons' version of Homer's Iliad, his sequel, Olympos, has finally arrived. If you didn't read Ilium, forget about even trying the new book; you won't have a clue what's going on. However, if you want something to do with the rest of your summer, the two books together will provide more than 1,300 pages of science-fiction enjoyment.

Several subplots from Ilium continue. Professor Thomas Hockenberry was brought back to life in the distant future to go back in time and chronicle the Trojan War for the post-human crowd that has moved to Olympos Mons on Mars and assumed the guise of Greek gods. He inadvertently changed the outcome of the war, and Trojans and Greeks have formed an uneasy alliance against the "gods." Lucky Tom has bedded Helen, but that alliance, also, is uneasy.

Meanwhile, on future earth, the voynix, the former android servants, have rioted against the old-time human beings, and Ada, Daeman and the others, with the help of Odysseus, are fighting a seemingly hopeless battle to survive.

The educated "moravec" droids, Mahmut and Orphu, along with several of their companions have built an antiquated spaceship that uses atomic bombs the size of pop cans for fuel. And they are headed from Mars to Earth to enter the fray.

By the end, a greatly diminished cast will provide most of the answers to the questions presented in the first book. And Simmons will have created a future world where more adventures could happen.

- Mark Graham

CHILDREN

My Friend

By Beatrice Alemagna (North-South Books, $15.95, ages 3-7).

Grade: A-

This sweet book follows a unique creature as others try their best to categorize it.

"I am a most unusual animal," the creature tells readers. "I have fur like a dog and I'm shaped like a sheep. But no one seems to know just what I am."

Whimsically illustrated with textiles and stitching, the creature definitely knows what it's not. It's mistaken for a cat, a monkey, a rat, a pigeon, a lion and a dog, all of which it denies being, sometimes vehemently. "Certainly not!" it tells a boy who wonders if it's a rat.

Near the end, it even doubts its own sense of identity. "I'm not a crocodile, nor a beaver. I'm certainly not a hippopotamus . . . But what am I?"

And then it comes upon some other unique creature who asks it to play, and the mystery is solved. The new creature happily declares, "I know what you are. You are my friend."

Told largely in conversation, the story reassures children who sometimes feel a little different and offers an interesting perspective on friendship for all readers.

- Natalie Soto

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