THRILLERS

Dead at Daybreak

By Deon Meyer (Little, Brown, $23.95).

Grade: A

A thriller set in an exotic locale, or even somewhere you've never been, can double your pleasure - especially if it's as well done as Deon Meyer's latest. Set in South Africa, Dead at Daybreak is an intoxicating literary cocktail.

Zatopek "Zed" van Heerden is an ex-cop and former criminal psychologist who obsesses over the past. The only thing keeping him somewhat motivated is his famous artist mother - that is, until a job comes along to drag him out of his funk.

An antiques dealer has been tortured with a blowtorch for the combination to his large safe and then executed with an M16 rifle. The man's lover needs help finding the missing will that was in the safe. Zed is hired by the girlfriend's attorney to find the will in seven days or the woman will lose her inheritance.

It doesn't take Zed long to discover that the dead man's life wasn't what it appeared. He had been living under an assumed name for decades. Not knowing what was in the safe or who the man had been leads Zed to a dead end, until he comes up with a brilliant way around that problem by getting the media to splash the man's face all over the country.

That's when all hell breaks loose. Zed is attacked at his mother's house. He starts looking into the possibility that soldiers killed the man. As the pieces to the puzzle begin to reveal themselves, the body count grows and Zed starts coming back to life.

Set in the convoluted and painful recent past of his country's history, the story tells the psychological tale of an essentially good man who cannot believe he is anything other than bad. If the Africa-set tea cozy mysteries of Alexander McCall Smith are too sedate for you, then give Meyer's exhilarating thrillers a try.

Peter Mergendahl

UNREAL WORLDS

Looking for Jake and Other Stories

By China Mieville (DelRey, $14.95).

Grade: A-

After his acclaimed first novel, 1998's King Rat, London author China Mieville burst on the fantasy scene in 2000 with Perdido Street Station. The lengthy book, about an intricate, fantastic and desolate world replete with altered human beings and other strange sentient beings, took home the Arthur C. Clarke and British Fantasy awards.

Looking for Jake, his first solo collection, brings together 13 short stories and a novelette. Several were first published in obscure anthologies, and even readers who have followed the author's career from the start will find a few new and exciting works.

A recurrent theme in Mieville's stories is that most people don't notice the subtleties in the world around them. "Reports of Certain Events in London" is told through a series of letters and reports about Viae Ferae ("wild streets"). These mysterious byways appear and disappear for hours, days or weeks in various cities around the globe. People who chance to walk down them at the wrong times are never seen again.

In "Details," a young boy tells about a reclusive seer who lives in a tenement apartment where everything is white. The psychic has seen what hides in the cracks and squiggles of reality, and there are monsters that want her to join them in their world.

In the epistolary title story, the narrator's letter to Jake makes the city of London a character that is taking its citizens along as it goes through its death throes: "I had learnt, very fast, that the rules of the city had imploded, that sense had broken down, that London was a broken and bloodied thing."

The collection's masterpiece is the novelette, "The Tain," a tale that Lewis Carroll might have written if H.P. Lovecraft were his alter ego. This trip through the looking glass is not only peopled with the escaped reflections of humanity, but with vampires and "imagos" (bloodthirsty spirits on the other side of that thin silver layer). Only one man may be able to save what's left of humanity.

All of the stories are couched in metaphor as this talented writer uses the fantastic to reflect on war, politics and man's inhumanity to man. Mieville's is a depressing world, and, although his message is not bereft of hope, he seems to be saying that time is running out.

Mark Graham

YOUNG ADULT

The Fashion Disaster That Changed My Life

By Lauren Myracle (Dutton Children's Books, $15.99, ages 8-12).

Grade: B

Seventh-grade social faux pas are on full display in this book about one preteen girl trying to make sense of her friendships.

Alli's first day of seventh grade is ruined when Jeremy, the class cut-up, notices underwear hanging out of one of Alli's pant legs. "I yanked it free, and Mom's panties billowed forth in a blossom of shiny nylon. As if they were mine." Static cling had bonded her mother's underwear to her pants - to her horror.

Jeremy continues to tease her about the incident until Rachel Delaney, the most popular girl in class, comes to her rescue and welcomes Alli into the highly coveted clique. Alli then struggles with straddling Rachel's group and her other two friends. Told through Alli's journal, instant messages and phone conversations, readers are treated to Alli's thoughts on everything from Rachel's belly piercing to one friend's family divorce.

Parents and middle-schoolers should like Alli - she's pretty level-headed, cares about her grades and others' feelings and makes the typical social mistakes of 12-year-olds. And she sees who her true friend is in the end.

Myracle, a Colorado resident, gives Alli a voice that most preteen girls will identify with and appreciate.

Natalie Soto

MYSTERY

Officer Down

By Theresa Schwegel (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95).

Grade: A

"I may have done some good here, but I made a hell of a mess along the way."

There are lots of good lines in Officer Down, a terrific debut mystery with a hard-edged take on the police novel.

Samantha Mack is a Chicago cop accused of killing her ex-partner in a "friendly fire" accident. Her life is even more complicated by a clandestine affair with a fellow cop who's married. But none of these facts and relationships will hold still for even a minute. Her lover and his plans for the future, the suspect she believes killed her partner and the world of crime they inhabit all get mixed up in a deadly game, and Mack's life goes from complicated to dangerous as she tries to chase down what's really going on.

Mack, who has enough guts to make it on the street but a little bit too much heart when it comes to her fellow cops, makes a fine heroine, complex and unpredictable. Schwegel excels at depicting nuances that give her characters more real-life impact than you'll find in the average mystery. And the city of Chicago gets an up-close perspective from a writer who grew up in Illinois and attended college at the city's Loyola University.

If you're a fan of Prime Suspect and the like, you'll find an excellent read in Officer Down.

Jane Dickinson

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