Hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year’s celebration. Remember, drink just enough to stop caring.

With 2005 at a close, BOOKGASM pauses to thank everyone who’s supported it in this first year: authors, publicists and, most importantly, the readers. We have fun doing it, so if you have fun reading it, tell people about it.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our week-long year-end coverage. As promised, we’ll return next week to begin unloading our stockpile of reviews, spotlighting new books in horror (BERSERK, THE UNDEAD: ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY), sci-fi/fantasy (CHILDREN OF THE COMPANY, RETURN TO QUAG KEEP), mystery/suspense (NIGHT WALKER, A MEAL TO DIE FOR, THE LAST TEMPLAR) and even comics (FABLES: HOMELANDS, SWAMP THING: SPONTANEOUS GENERATION). Plus, we’ve got interview with Ray Morton, author of the new KING KONG: THE HISTORY OF A MOVIE ICON FROM FAY WRAY TO PETER JACKSON, and ROAD TO PARADISE’s Max Allan Collins. Until then, * clink! *

It’s time once again for our monthly roundup of the most popular incoming search queries at BOOKGASM, so pop quiz, hotshot! Which of these search terms is not like the other?
a) “linda lovelace dogs”
b) “graphic torture drawings”
c) “sexy bosoms”
d) “nero wolfe memorabilia”

Did you pick “d”? Too bad, because the answer is “c”; we here at BOOKGASM love the sexy bosoms. And so do you, judging from the usual wealth of lovely lady searches. But giving unclothed actresses a run for their residual money is ol’ King Kong. That big, dumb ape made quite the showing this month – no surprise, given he’s got a new movie out. Too bad not everyone is as crazy about it as they are Googling him. Oh, and to answer the guy who wants to know how to cite H.G. Wells’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS? Verrrry carefully.

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To be honest, my list for this year’s anticipated titles already numbers in the dozens, but these 10 currently stick out, for various reasons. In no particular order…

• THE BOOK OF THE DEAD – Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child promise to tie up all the loose ends of BRIMSTONE and DANCE OF DEATH with this concluding chapter of their Agent Pendergast trilogy, which they say was really like one big book broken into three. That’s made the wait even harder. I have yet to read anything these guys have written that I didn’t love. (June 6)

• DEAN KOONTZ’S FRANKENSTEIN: BOOK THREE – We don’t know its subtitle. We don’t know who’s co-writing it. We don’t even know when exactly it’s coming out. But given that we loved BOOK ONE and BOOK TWO, we know we’ll eat it up just as soon as it arrives. Quite possibly my favorite book series of this decade. (Summerish)

• CELL – Because it’s about cell phones that turn people into zombies. But mostly because it marks Stephen King’s return to his pure-horror roots. (Jan. 24)

• TWISTED – As you may have read, we found Jay Bonansinga’s chilling FROZEN to be the best paperback original of the year. TWISTED will continue the strange, supernatural-science investigations of FBI profiler Ulysses Grove, this time involving a hurricane (timely, no?). (Summer)

• THRILLER: STORIES TO KEEP YOU UP ALL NIGHT – It’s no secret I love a good anthology, and this one has a lineup that makes me salivate: the aforementioned Preston & Child, F. Paul Wilson, David Morrell, Ted Bell, Lee Child … damn, we’re going to be spoiled. Even if it weren’t the first all-thriller anthology as it proclaims itself to be, it’d still be special. (May 22)

• THE SOLOMON KEY – Here’s the one book I wouldn’t be surprised get pushed to 2007: Dan Brown’s sequel to THE DA VINCI CODE, a small novel that has quietly struggled to find an audience. Little is known about SOLOMON, except that it’s another adventure for DA VINCI’s Prof. Robert Langdon and involves Freemasonry. Even in the face of all the recent backlash, I’m not ashamed to say I loved DA VINCI for the fun, fast ride that it was. (Before Christmas)

• SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY: VOL. 1 – I have to put one graphic novel on this list, and hands down, that honor goes to Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY. Because I don’t buy single-issue comic books, I’ve missed out on Morrison’s bizarro-fantasy-epic-mythology-revisionist project, comprised of seven four-part limited series, each focused on a different character, including such obscure DC characters as The Bulleteer, Mr. Miracle, Zatanna, Shining Knight and Frankenstein. This will collect the first bunch of issues. I’m anxious to see how it all plays out, especially since a stand-alone issue #0 kicking off the series introduced a bunch of characters, only to kill them off on the last page by a giant spider. (Jan. 11)

• THE MYTH HUNTERS – I’m a little leery when authors say, “Here’s Book One of my new series!” After all, what if no one bites? As with any, that could happen with Christopher Golden’s THE MYTH HUNTERS, but I doubt it. It just sounds too cool, a dark fantasy melding of murder and myth – in this case, Jack Frost. (Jan. 31)

• GRIMM REAPINGS – This is R. Patrick Gates’ long-awaited sequel to GRIMM MEMORIALS, a horror novel so whacked-out and out-there that I’d call it the best horror novel of 2005, if only it weren’t originally released 15 years prior. I’m not sure how he’s going to pull off another one, but with all that haggard witch sex trickery from the first time around, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. (February)

• HORROR: THE BEST OF 2005 – So long overdue it hurts. (February)

And what about you?

Just a couple of notable titles sneaking their way to new release shelves in hopes of catching those post-Christmas giftcard dollars…

• One is SAVAGE MESSIAH: THE DESTINIES OF BLOOD AND STONE, Robert Newcomb’s start of a new trilogy set in the world of his previous trilogy. Make sense? It’s a fantasy with lots of magic, which is not something I look for in a novel, but I do so love that cool cover.

• Meanwhile, Matthew Reilly’s latest thriller, SEVEN DEADLY WONDERS, has a crappy cover but a decidely more high-concept premise that sounds readymade for a summer movie: Various countries race across the globe to find pieces of the Great Pyramid capstone hidden in the seven wonders of the world, broken up and scattered there thousands of years ago by Alexander the Great. Reviews haven’t been too kind, but Reilly – the author of SCARECROW and AREA 7 – certainly has his fans.

3 BEST BOOKS OF 2005
1. THE GEOGRAPHER’S LIBRARY by Jon Fasman – Overlooked and unfairly pegged as a DA VINCI CODE rip-off, Fasman’s debut is an expert mix of post-collegiate angst and decades-spanning adventure – a combo that, in theory, should mix as well as oil and water.

2. TRANSGRESSIONS edited by Ed McBain – It’s strange that an anthology almost became the best book we read, but consider the talent behind it: Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, Stephen King, Jeffery Deaver, Donald E. Westlake and so many others, all given free reign to write whatever the hell they want, and most of them respond at the top of their game.

3. THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova – Hype or no hype, Kostova’s first novel – a decade in the making – breathed new life into that moribund genre of vampire fiction by, ironically enough, going old (as in Gothic). Highbrow horror thick enough to, um, sink your teeth into.

WORST BOOK OF 2005
GHOST by John Ringo – This decision was a no-brainer. So’s the book, because it thinks only with its dick. Don’t be fooled by the cover or the intriguing jacket copy: This is not an action thriller; it’s misogynist pornography. Ringo himself warns readers that they may hate it, so one wonders why he didn’t channel all that hatred and aggression into something worth reading. And this may be the worst I’ve ever read. DISHONORABLE MENTION: THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING 2005 – Get over yourself, Eggers & Co.

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
FROZEN by Jay Bonansinga – This supernatural-infused police procedural is so suspenseful, so well-plotted that we still can’t figure out why it didn’t debut in hardcover. Oh, well. At least it’s the start of a series. We’ll settle for that.

BEST MOVIE TIE-IN THAT’S BETTER THAN THE MOVIE
KING KONG: THE ISLAND OF THE SKULL by Matthew Costello – Seriously. Even without Kong, it’s more rewarding than the three-hour epic now lumbering in theaters.

NOT BAD, BUT CERTAINLY DISAPPOINTING
A tie between THE TRAVELER by John Twelve Hawkes and ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman – The former disappoints because it’s cool upfront and then meanders wildly; the latter because it’s so light and fluffy compared to its predecessor. Even standing on its own, I’d have to consider it a lesser work for Gaiman, to whose work I always look forward.

BEST COMICS
BIGFOOT and DOOMED – This may be the most subjective category, but I’m going with these two titles from IDW Publishing. Though both horror, they couldn’t be more different. BIGFOOT is here because it’s so balls-out crazy; DOOMED because it succeeded in resurrecting the ’70s black-and-white comics magazine for adults and left us thirsting for more.

BEST GUILTY PLEASURE
MR. SKIN’S SKINCYCLOPEDIA: THE A-TO-Z GUIDE FOR FINDING YOUR FAVORITE ACTRESSES NAKED – Or should we say biggest? For its pun-laden descriptions of the breast that cinema has to offer, it’s as invaluable a reference as those penned by Webster or Roget. RUNNER-UP: Paperbacks from Leisure Horror. I only wish half of them didn’t suck.

BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO BOOKS IN QUITE SOME TIME
The Hard Case Crime line. Whether they’re reprinting a lost classic or minting a new one, it’s comforting to know that each and every month, you’re guaranteed at least one book that absolutely knocks it out of the park. Runner-up: Leslie S. Klinger’s three-volume THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES. There are so few books so treasurable that you know you’ll never part with them. This is one … er, make that three of them.

BEST TITLE, REGARDLESS OF HOW THE BOOK IS
FRIDAY THE 13TH: HATE-KILL-REPEAT by Jason Arnopp – Everytime I go to the bookstore, I have to look at this cover just to assure myself I wasn’t dreaming it.

BEST LOWBROW TITLE FOR A HIGHBROW BOOK
MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

BEST BOOK SENT TO US WE DIDN’T FEEL QUALIFIED TO REVIEW, SO WE DIDN’T
MORE BODY, MORE SOUL: BEAUTIFUL BLACK MEN by Duane Thomas

NUMBER OF USED BOOKS I BOUGHT OFF AMAZON MARKETPLACE
4

NUMBER OF THOSE WHOSE CONDITION WAS ACCURATELY DESCRIBED
1

Contributing reviewer Mark Rose weighs in with some bests and worsts of his own…

BEST BOOK REVIEW PUBLICATION
Bookforum. It’s inexpensive (which is why the Times Literary Supplement loses out), it’s readily available at most newsstands and it consistently reviews the most interesting books in the world of art, architecture and literature.

WORST BOOK REVIEW PUBLICATION
The New York Times Book Review. It’s stodgy, pretentious and unbelievably biased towards a certain world view … much like its parent company.

WORST NEW DEVELOPMENT IN BOOKS
Bravo ran a comedy special on December 15 called CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY: IN THEIR OWN WORDS, where comedians read aloud from books “written” by Elizabeth Taylor and N’Sync. It’s bad enough the books are published, now they’re being read aloud to me. At least I didn’t mention Pamela Anderson in STACKED.

MOST DISAPPOINTING BOOK
Michael Crichton’s STATE OF FEAR. A riveting good action adventure novel that treats hardcore environmentalism as a fundamentalist religion would be a great read. Too bad Crichton didn’t write a book like that. Instead, he chose to include page after page of graphs and make all his characters about as deep and as nuanced as shirt cardboard.

BEST WRITER TO NOT HAVE A BOOK IN 2005
Nicholson Baker. Come on, Nicholson! Stop it with the sex fantasy books and write something like THE MEZZANINE or THE SIZE OF THOUGHTS again, please? Oh, and as much as I appreciate THE WORLD ON SUNDAY: GRAPHIC ART IN JOSEPH PULITZER’S NEWSPAPER (1898-1911), it’s not quite what I was looking for.

BEST E-BOOK PROVIDER
Electricstory.com. No, I don’t own stock in this fantasy and science-fiction e-book provider. But they do a nice job and have great authors. And they publish my own little e-zine, so you gotta love ‘em!

BEST ONLINEBOOK PROVIDER
Shout out to amazon.co.uk. The Penguin design book (mentioned above) was water-damaged when it arrived, though the other book in the shipment was mysteriously undamaged. An e-mail to customer service and the very next day, they tell me they’re shipping out a new book and no need to return the damaged one because it would be too expensive for me. I’m still gobsmacked.

CHEAPEST BOOK I BOUGHT IN 2005
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS HEROES: PRIMA’S OFFICIAL STRATEGY GUIDE. I don’t get how this works. I bought a used copy of this from Amazon Marketplace for 28 cents. How does anyone make money off this?

AUTHOR WHOSE BOOKS I BOUGHT THE MOST OF IN 2005
This surprised me, but it was Harry Matthews (with three titles bought this year alone). Matthews is the only American member of the Oulipo literature movement. Basically, Oulipo sets very difficult writing tasks for themselves and then attempts to create art through those tasks. For instance, perhaps the most famous is Georges Perec who wrote LA DISPARITION, a novel that does not contain a single letter “e” in its text (yes, I know, it’s been done before). Matthews’ MY LIFE IN CIA: A CHRONICLE OF 1973 was published in 2005. You should buy it.

1. WOKEN FURIES by Richard K. Morgan
The third – and final, at least for now – novel in Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs body-swapping cycle brings our protangonist to his home planet, where he has to confront the remnants of war and ghosts from the past. Morgan is at the forefront of science fiction right now, along with Charles Stross and Jon Courtenay Grimwood, and he shows it off at full force here.

2. ACCELERANDO by Charles Stross
Originally serialized in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, the author of the superb SINGULARITY SKY and IRON SUNRISE takes another look at the future of man. While there are more ideas and theories in here than are necessarily comfortable in a book this short, ACCELERANDO is hardcore and not for readers afraid of technospeak. If you want to try it out, it’s available for free on the Web.

3-4. PASHAZADE / EFFENDI by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
It’s hard to include these books on a list of 2005’s best, but I think it illustrates the absolute insanity of science fiction publishers. These awesome Raymond Chandler-style cyberpunk detective books set in a future Ottoman Empire were released in the UK starting in 2001 and, extremely limited U.S. releases notwithstanding, they haven’t seen the majority of U.S. shelves until this year. Still, the books haven’t lost any of their impact or appeal. Much like his earlier classics REMIX and REDROBE, Grimwood hasn’t let us down yet. The two books he has released this year, STAMPING BUTTERFLIES and 9TAIL FOX, aren’t widely available on these shores yet, and that is a crying shame. The third book in his Arabesk trilogy, FELAHEEN is just now out.

5. THE NARROWS by Alexander Irvine
A master of alternate history and the lives therein, Irvine takes a micro rather than macro focus in THE NARROWS and paints a stunning portrait of a man constantly pestered by outside forces who just wants to spend time with his family.

6. OLYMPOS by Dan Simmons
Simmons’ SONG OF KALI is the scariest horror book that has no monsters. CARRION COMFORT and SUMMER OF NIGHT one-up the best themes of Stephen King, and his Hyperion cycle stood out as a beacon against derivative science fiction in the 90s. With ILIUM and the sequel OLYMPOS, Simmons mixes Shakespeare, Homer and post-singularity man with great results. A bit dense and sometimes a little too easy to figure out, these books nonetheless are science fiction from a different angle and a refreshing change of pace.

7. MARKET FORCES by Richard K. Morgan
Morgan does without trademark anti-hero Takeshi Kovacs in this one in favor of Yuppie “greed is good” executives who travel up and down the corporate ladder by means of morning commute MAD MAX-style auto battles on the freeway. While the symbolism might be a bit obvious, and the BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES plot might be seen as off-putting, they can also be seen as necessary evils and a means to which the reader gets to witness much automotive ass-kickery.

8. THE TRAVELER by John Twelve Hawks
Let’s look at this book in Joseph Campbell/George Lucas terms: Reluctant hero? Check. Mysterious “force” that empowers some? Check. Hokey religion? Check. The list could go on forever. The enigmatic Hawks mines archetypes and stereotypes for a week of Sundays (and adds a generous helping of Big Brother paranoia), but THE TRAVELER is surprisingly fun to read. It moves at the right pace – quick – and the twists and turns are unexpected enough to provide some drama, even if the large shape of the novel is given away in the first couple of chapters.

1. THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova
I really, really wanted to read this book. I love vampires (the threatening kind, not the wussy romantic kind with long blond hair) and I love thrillers, and this promised to be a Reese’s “two great tastes” moment. But alas, no cash.

2. ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman
Once again, I drooled over this books for weeks at the bookstore that sits right on my way to work each day, but no such luck. Even thought I hear it isn’t as good as AMERICAN GODS, I really want to read it. Library schmibrary.

3. FIFTY DEGREES BELOW by Kim Stanley Robinson
FORTY SIGNS OF RAIN was one of the best science fiction books I’ve read since his previous effort, THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT. Climate change enthusiasts who got put off by Michael Crichton’s FOX News-style STATE OF FEAR should give it a try.

4. CENTURY RAIN by Alastair Reynolds
I honestly don’t even know the plot of this, but I wanted it. Reynolds is the “hard SF” voice of the new breed of writers. Science-heavy and thick. He’s always worth the trouble even though Reynolds distinctly doesn’t know the usage difference between “that” and “which.”

5. SEEKER by Jack McDevitt
McDevitt writes really nice procedural-style mysteries in the guise of space opera. They’ve got a real nice flow to them, but seriously, they’re not worth $25.

6. TRANSCENDANT by Stephen Baxter
The first book of this trilogy, COALESCENT, thrilled with the depiciton of an evolutionary offshoot of the human race that lived under Rome. The second, EXULTANT, took us far into the future to an interstellar war, and there’s got to be an ending that can tie this stuff together.

7. DANCE OF DEATH by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
I’ve loved these guys ever since I listened to THE RELIC unabridged on a solo drive from Oklahoma to Wisconsin in 1994. Unafraid to introduce the supernatural into otherwise mainstream work, I loved BRIMSTONE and the Agent Pendergast character especially. Can’t wait for the paperback.

8. COLLAPSE: HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO FAIL OR SUCCEED by Jared Diamond
Diamond’s GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL was an adventure book that happened to be nonfiction. I think it’s safe to say that COLLAPSE is more of the same. Great stuff for pondering or to show your intellectual heft at the office water cooler.

Following a lackluster couple of months, Leisure’s two-a-month horror paperback line looks far more promising in the coming new year, with novels about zombies, poltergeists and, yes, even giant worms.

January brings Tim Lebbon’s corpse-laden BERSERK and Ray Garton’s creepy-kid tale THE LOVELIEST DEAD, while in February, a writer faces supernatural terrors in Mark Morris’ THE IMMACULATE and J.P. Gonzalez’s extreme horror outing SURVIVOR – about a snuff film – is unleashed to the general public. March offers AFTER MIDNIGHT, another Richard Laymon novel, and DEATHBRINGER, Bryan Smith’s zombie-filled follow-up to HOUSE OF BLOOD.

Later in the summer, giant worms invade in Brian Keene’s THE CONQUEROR WORMS and Jack Ketchum’s infamous cannibal tale OFF SEASON finally gets back in print, and uncensored at that! If you’ve read his equally notorious THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, you know exactly the kind of shocks to expect.

You can preview six of the titles’ covers after the jump.

Read more »

As reported by The New York Times, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s best-selling FREAKONOMICS: A ROGUE ECONOMIST EXPLORES THE HIDDEN SIDE OF EVERYTHING and J.K. Rowling’s HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE were the books most discussed on the 5,000 most-trafficked blogs for 2005.

Other hot-button titles on the non-fiction-heavy list include Malcolm Gladwell’s BLINK: THE POWER OF THINKING WITHOUT THINKING, Thomas L. Friedman’s THE WORLD IS FLAT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, Michael Crichton’s STATE OF FEAR, George Orwell’s 1984 and Dan Brown’s ominprescent THE DA VINCI CODE. You can read the list in full here.

That’s right, we said it: Merry Christmas! Damn these politically correct times! But not to exclude our friends celebrating Hanukkah, Kwanza and any other difficult-to-spell holiday. Whatever you’re celebrating, we hope you have a good one. (Except all the online casinos who’ve been trying to spam this site – all three dozen of you can go to hell.)

In the spirit of the holidays, we’re taking a little break for the rest of the week, but come back next week for several days of year-end coverage, including our roundup of the year’s best and worst books. Then, as 2006 officially rolls around, we’ll be back with the usual slew of reviews, including THE LAST TEMPLAR, A MEAL TO DIE FOR, MURDER AT THE FOUL LINE, ALREADY DEAD, WOLVERINE: WEAPON X and TALES BEFORE TOLKIEN, just to name a few.

Hope you liked THE DA VINCI CODE, because 2006 will be bringing you more of the same. USA Today reports that next year will see a flood of thrillers with strong historical/religious themes, continuing a wave created by the splash of Dan Brown’s megaseller that has given us similarly themed novels like THE RULE OF FOUR, CODEX, THE GEOGRAPHER’S LIBRARY and more.

The article singles out these forthcoming books as those vying for quick, big sales:
• THE LAST TEMPLAR by Raymond Khoury
• LABYRINTH by Kate Mosse
• THE TEMPLAR LEGACY by Steve Berry
• THE LAST CATO by Matilde Asensi
• THE SECRET SUPPER by Javier Sierra

Lotsa Templars! Of course, it’s unlikely that any of them will achieve the numbers that Brown’s follow-up, THE SOLOMON KEY, is poised to do once it’s released. That doesn’t mean they’re not automatically worthy of a read, however. As has been the case with DA VINCI-esque thrillers thus far, the output ranges from great to incompetent.

Everyone knows that on Halloween weekend in 1938, Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater players scared the bejeezus out of millions with their radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, recasting it as a live news broadcast that had listeners believe Earth was being invaded by Mars. But did you know minutes prior to that broadcast, a young woman was murdered in the studio, and Welles himself was the prime suspect?

At least that’s the idea put forth by THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER, a rather nifty entry in Max Allan Collins’ series of historical murder mysteries, each of which involve a famous writer investigating a homicide occuring simultaneously with a textbook-worthy disaster. In this one, it’s pulp scribe Walter Gibson, creator of The Shadow, who’s called to New York by Welles to discuss collaborating on a Shadow screenplay. With all of Welles’ excesses – food, drink, women, himself – very little work gets done, but Gibson gets to spend the weekend on the man’s dime.

While patiently playing the waiting game, Gibson gets to witness the Mercury Theater players rehearse and fine-tune what would be their most historic broadcast. Unfortunately, he also gets to witness to discovery of a dead body, a mistress of Welles lying dead in a pool of blood, next to a knife signed by the future CITIZEN KANE director himself. But the show must go on; besides, the time will leave Gibson to do some sleuthing.

Meanwhile, Orson & Co. enact their WAR, oblivious to its reception outside the studio walls. In the book’s only deviation from Gibson’s point of view, we see the various effects it had on listeners, and the telling is fascinating. With real-life characters such as John Houseman and Bernard Hermann, the line between fact and fiction is expertly blurred, just as it was with Welles’ WAR hoax. Furthermore, the novel’s events are framed as a story Gibson told to Collins himself at a mystery convention in the 1970s, so half the fun is letting your mind sort the truth from the tugs on your leg. “Nothing in my research confirmed what Walter said,” Collins teasingly writes in the prologue, “but nothing contradicted it, either.”

If I had the mystery part figured out well in advance, who cares? Despite the title, that aspect is really secondary in the scheme of things. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER is less of a whodunit than a howdunit – well-researched, immersed in the period and simply a metallic tripod creature’s worth of fun. It’s the first of Collins’ series that I’ve read, but by no means the last.

Buy it at Amazon.

Only one notable book out on this, the last new release day before Christmas: TURNING ANGEL by Greg Iles. Behind that clunky title lies a thriller about a lawyer reluctantly representing a doctor friend accused of murdering and raping a high school girl (and, incidentally, lover). I have yet to read any work of Iles (though an uncracked hardcover of THE FOOTPRINTS OF GOD sits on my shelf), but his fans are legion, so those who turned out for the likes of BLOOD MEMORY and THE QUIET GAME will no doubt turn out for this as well.

Following the one-two punch of BRIMSTONE and DANCE OF DEATH, authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child will conclude their Pendergast trilogy this summer with the ominously titled THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.

Streeting June 6, BOOK OF THE DEAD will continue the story of their popular, unconventional FBI Agent Pendergast; no other plot details are as yet available. Preston and Child are two of my favorite writers – together or separately – so this news is exciting.

Pre-order it at Amazon.

As the second original novel based upon the hit TV series, 24 DECLASSIFIED: VETO POWER is just as pulse-pounding and breakneck-speedy as its predecessor, 24 DECLASSIFIED: OPERATION HELL GATE, which is to say it’s faithful to the feel of the show.

In VETO POWER, counterterrorist agent Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland in the series) has spent several months undercover in a Timothy McVeigh-esque militia. As the daylong narrative begins, Jack arrests the militia leader, only to be told the country has bigger fish to fry, in the shape of a foreign terrorist cell on American soil, with something sinister up its sleeve. Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney general is blackmailing an influential female senator, threatening to expose her prostitute past in order to advance his personal political agenda on the nation. Before Jack’s day is up, all these activities thread together to form a formidable threat to the country, one he must stop as only he can.

Replacing HELL GATE’s Marc Cerasini (who will be back in February for the third novel, 24 DECLASSIFIED: TROJAN HORSE), author John Whitman makes a good point about Jack Bauer that explains the strong appeal of the character: that people mistake Bauer for the police, except he doesn’t have to play by the rules. On the show, Jack thinks nothing of cutting a guy’s head off with a hacksaw to get the job done, and that half-crazy, anything-goes sense of reckless abandon for the greater good carries over well into print. (Amusingly, Whitman also knows which side his bread his buttered, as he has one character request a TV be switched from CNN to FOX.)

VETO POWER strays from the show’s strict real-time format by placing a six-month-old flashback in the middle of the narrative, even though it could’ve easily been explained in a short conversation. Set as early as 2003, it also errs in continuity by having the Nina Myers still be on CTU’s side, even though she was unmistakably the villain by the end of the show’s 2001-02 season (assuming 24 doesn’t take place in the future).

But these are minor quibbles for what amounts to a pleasurable thrill ride. Besides, any story that manages to involve napalm bombs, electromagnetic pulse weaponry, Latino gangs and sexy strippers is a guaranteed good time.

Buy it at Amazon.

Christopher Moore is known for a number of highly humorous bestsellers, including LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL and the offbeat vampire tale BLOODSUCKING FIENDS. But the one that’ll go on his tombstone is the twisted, halo-askew THE STUPIDEST ANGEL: A HEARTWARMING TALE OF CHRISTMAS TERROR. With ANGEL newly available in VERSION 2.0, with an extra chapter at the end, we caught up with Moore and threw a few questions his way. This is how they fell:

BOOKGASM: Why do you think THE STUPIDEST ANGEL was such a hit?
MOORE: I think it hit all the right buttons. It had a cute cover, a funny title, a great price-point and it was a true satire of the traditional Hallmark Channel Christmas story.

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Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. It was the comic-esque art and coloring that drew my eye to THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING DETECTIVE AND 19 OF THE YEAR’S FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES. Lucky for me, the words within held my attention just as much and then some. Edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, the volume showcases the best of 2004, about half of them pulled from the pages of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and even a few from online fiction sites.

The collection takes its title from the first story, by Gary Lovisi, an amusing Sherlock Holmes story set immediately after his near-death experience at Reichenbach Falls, temporarily transferred into a bizarro world that’s the flipside of his own. This is followed by Jeffery Deaver’s “The Westphalian Ring,” about a thieving antiques shopkeeper who steals – and then attempts to conceal – a valuable piece of jewelry. Any new short story from Deaver is a cause for celebration, but as clever as the turn of events are, I was more surprised by the late-in-the-game cameo from one of literature’s all-time greats.

The impossibly prolific Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Banshee” isn’t quite up to her usual excellence, but remains pretty good nonetheless, succeeding in raising my blood pressure by putting young children in peril. My favorite was Duane Swierczynski’s “The Last Case of Hilly Palmer,” in which a fledging journalist tries to interview one of his town’s last gumshoes, who’s somewhat of a crusty old bastard. As funny as it is, the powerful ending is anything but. Of the 19 stories, only two failed to engage me, making for an excellent track record.

This collection doubles as a yearbook of sorts, with Jon L. Breen and Edward D. Hoch providing two separate but similar overviews of the year in crime fiction, complete with numerous awards lists, while Maxim Jakubowski weighs in with a short essay on the state of the mystery in Great Britain and Sarah Weinman discusses the emergence of blogs as a marketing tool for mystery writers. But it’s the stories – those of gay priests, hired guns, college girls and Japanese nerve-gas terrorists, even a quasi-Western and magic-laden fantasy – that will stick with you, hopefully holding you over until the next year’s edition.

UPDATE: The biggest mystery of all is how the book made it onto shelves with the misspelled word “MISSSING” emblazoned on its spine. Credit for eagle-eyeing that one goes to my wife.

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Odds are you may be spending a good chunk of this weekend seeing Peter Jackson’s KING KONG remake. Why not spend just as much time on a book? Though many more KONG-related titles are available – both authorized and otherwise – we’d like to take advantage of the ape fervor and direct you to four we’ve reviewed:

• KING KONG by Delos W. Lovelace
• KING KONG: THE ISLAND OF THE SKULL by Matthew Costello
• KING KONG: THE HISTORY OF A MOVIE ICON FROM FAY WRAY TO PETER JACKSON by Ray Morton
• KONG REBORN by Russell Blackford

I confess: I am addicted to the Hard Case Crime line of novels. They’re all so good. Case in point: Dominic Stansberry’s THE CONFESSION, which represents Hard Case’s first (but certainly not last) Edgar Award winner.

THE CONFESSION is a lurid tale told by Jake Danser, a successful psychologist who spends much of his time in court, testifying to the mental state of those accused of heinous crimes. For all his credibility on the stand, Jake isn’t exactly a likeable fellow off of it – for one thing, he’s repeatedly unfaithful to his wife, Elizabeth; for another, he has a ponytail. Currently, he’s canoodling with his mistress Sara, and when Elizabeth finds out about it, their already strained marriage turns positively sour. Jake moves out of the house, though he wants to patch things up.

When he sees Elizabeth pop up at a party with his rival, prosecutor Minor Robinson, Jake gets angry. When he sees Sara pop up at the same party, he seeks to make his wife jealous by dancing with his mistress. And then following her home. And then having sex with her. And then leaving the next morning. All’s right with the world until Jake learns Sara has been murdered, with all evidence pointing his way. Thus, the man who works from a witness box stands to be on trial himself. Time to cut that ponytail.

So compelling was THE CONFESSION that I read it in one day, which is somewhat remarkable, given that we’re saddled with a narrator/protagonist that I’m not sure we’re supposed to like. And it’s not that you root for him, but you definitely want to see what happens. You really have no choice, as Stansberry does a superb job in stringing you along, putting the screws to Jake and everyone else. Reminiscent of a noir THE FUGITIVE, it starts out dark and grows even darker, leading to a conclusion that’s chilling. It takes a sure hand to end such a story the way Stansberry does and not the outcome obvious, yet if you go back and look, the clues are all there. That’s the mark of a great writer, and THE CONFESSION finds him at the top of his game, throwing a new crime classic our way.

Buy it at Amazon.

Vince Churchill’s THE BLACKEST HEART begins like any dime-store Western, with a bar fight at the Bloody Kiss saloon, complete with heads bouncing off of hardwood floors, black boots delivering rib-crunching kicks to exposed midsections and collapsed card tables that might’ve been used for weapons after a hidden ace turned up in some poor pardner’s sleeve.

But THE BLACKEST HEART is not a Western; at least, it’s not just a Western. Churchill’s ambitious sophomore effort (his debut, THE DEAD SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH, took zombies beyond Romero’s world and landed them in outer space) jumps genres like its villainous Yardon Wrath jumps worlds, depositing pain and death and withdrawing more loot than all the train robbers who pillaged before him. Wrath is a freakish cyborg antagonist, made immortal by the World Government, which wished to create a cybernetic species of man-machines superior to all. But Wrath escaped their clutches and found refuge on the planet Pandora, a lawless world inhabited by attacking vines, ground-burrowing sharks and dog-sized spiders, among other dangers. While this wildlife almost killed Wrath upon his arrival to Pandora, it would go on to help protect him from future posses sent to assassinate him. Lost souls and those running from the law followed him to the rogue planet to join his army, aptly named The Plague. Attracted as much to his reputation as to his enormous wealth, The Plague volunteered their services in Wrath’s tour of revenge against those who’d stolen his humanity and replaced it with robotic ears and a biomechanical heart.

In the book’s bloody first chapter, Wrath and The Plague invade the Bloody Kiss and kill famous Elite Star Guard Marshal Thane Bishop, the “Wyatt Earp of space,” just one of many Wrath considers responsible for his painful transformation. Before he dies, Bishop looks up from a pool of blood to see his wife and daughter in the lusty crosshairs of Wrath and The Plague and vows to himself, if he somehow survives, to kill everyone in the room who lays a hand on them. But survive he does not, and Bishop’s body is unceremoniously deposited in an alley garbage dumpster, where he meets the Nii, a mystical, dying race on some plane of existence between life as the marshal knows it and death, drawing sustenance from the energy of entities as they pass through the Nii’s otherworldly realm.

The Nii quickly offers Bishop a chance to avenge his own death and whatever perverted acts have been performed upon his wife and daughter, and even offers to restore them to a time before that fateful night. The deal: The Nii will help transform Bishop to a younger, stronger version of himself, one more than capable of taking down his enemies, in exchange for the dark souls of criminals and sinners. Bishop reluctantly accepts the bargain, essentially selling his soul in the process, and sets out on a mission of revenge against Yardon Wrath and his band of murderers and rapists.

But Wrath’s wrath is not confined to his enemies alone. In one memorable scene, he makes an example of a human-sized king cobra named Krill, a mutant manufactured from the DNA of a former Star Corp operative who volunteered to have his genes spliced with that of a snake. Churchill’s book is well-populated by such creatures, and this cast of cyborg characters steals most of the show.

THE BLACKEST HEART is short but not sweet. In fact, it’s brutal from page one, and while the fast start might spoil readers and victimize the second third of the book, Churchill’s novel finally delivers on all accounts, with enough plot twists as colorful characters and a shocker of a climax that will leave readers drooling for more. It is sure to please fans of the many genres it crosses. Perhaps fittingly, THE BLACKEST HEART is ripe for a sequel. Not only is it not just a Western, it’s also not only an epic sci-fi adventure horror thriller. It’s also a cliffhanger.

BONUS XXX-CERPT: “Her sex pushed hard against his mouth, forcing him to continue to drink from her as she quivered and shook, grunting and panting his name along with broken flecks of profanity that only fueled his aching manhood more.”

Buy it at Amazon and Shocklines.