THRILLERS

Vinnie's Head

By Marc Lecard. St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95.

Johnnie LoDuco is a likable, if intellectually challenged, schlub from Long Island with his own personal black cloud following along behind him. We enter Johnnie's story as he is fishing the head of his buddy Vinnie out of Long Island Sound using a stolen fishing pole.

That's bad luck enough, but when the plans that Vinnie had laid out involving the mob come back to haunt Johnnie, it's going to take much more than the luck of the Irish to get away from the string of miscreants, hoods and crooked cops that show up. It doesn't help Johnnie that he is clueless as to what Vinnie was planning before losing his head.

Final word: I promise to never again compare Lecard to Carl Hiaasen in a review. Just this once. Lecard is that good.

Peter Mergendahl

CHILDREN

Tasting the Sky:A Palestinian Childhood

By Ibtisam Barakat. Melanie Kroupa Books (Farrar, Strausand Giroux), $16, Ages 12 and up.

Barakat puts readers inside her skin in this achingly beautiful story about growing up a Palestinian refugee during the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

She pieces together her memories of fleeing her home in Ramallah at age 3 at the outset of the Six-Day War and seeking out any scrap of comfort. An Arabic letter drawn with chalk becomes a friend when she hasn't any. She closes her eyes and hides in her imagination, muffling the war outside a Jordan shelter.

Later, she describes the torment of being put in an orphanage after her parents decide they can't keep their children safe. It's not hard to understand where Barakat's poetic sensibility was born. In one of her most powerful images, Barakat describes years later going by bus to Birzeit just to nestle her hand in a post office box. The box once belonged to her brother and was later passed on to her. "Post Office Box 34 is the only place in the world that belongs to me . . . Having this box is like having a country, the size of a tiny square, all to myself."

Final word: This is a stunning debut that connects you to a world so removed from your own and makes you wish all the more that both sides one day find peace.

Jennifer Miller

MYSTERY

Death Comes for the Fat Man

By Reginald Hill (HarperCollins, $24.95)

One of the British greats, Hill has been experimenting in his last few books. Perhaps he's become a bit bored with his long-running mystery series set in Yorkshire, and who could blame him - the first book featuring Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe was published in 1970. So his latest is both an alarm and a relief: Although it threatens death for the fat man (the beloved Dalziel), it also hews to a comfortingly orthodox mystery line, albeit one featuring Muslim terrorists and a new band of crusaders who take matters into their own hands.

A bomb blast puts Dalziel in the hospital, comatose and near death. Pascoe vows to find the culprits, who seem to have friends in high places. Above the story hovers the disembodied spirit of Dalziel, objecting to the prayers of his friends and arguing with the Presence on the other side of consciousness, but ever closer to giving up the ghost.

Final word: A must for Hill's many fans. Mystery readers unfamiliar with the series can best rectify the situation by starting with some of Hill's earlier books.

Jane Dickinson

MUSIC

Nirvana:The Biography

By Everett True. Da Capo Press, $19.99.

Each biography of Kurt Cobain claims to be definitive, and this time it delivers. While the authorized bio Heavier Than Heaven got inside Cobain's mind with access to his diaries, True was with Cobain for key moments in his life and death. Cobain's personality intimately comes through while giving a bigger picture of how he affected the people around him and the music world. Even 600 deliciously detailed pages aren't enough.

Final word: Other biographers have gotten extraordinary access in the past, but True was there to get the big picture. You can't beat that.

Mark Brown

Back to Top