Daily book reviews in the Times

This noir-like thriller gives readers thrills -- and a little too much blood.

The drummer for the Police recalls his childhood, being in a super band and life with drumsticks in hand.

The author’s latest plunges Harry Bosch -- and his devoted fans -- to thrilling, new depths as a case sends the detective to China when his daughter’s life is threatened.

The story of a boy and a pachyderm.

Considerations on the lasting legacy of the diary and its author.

A couple’s lives are transformed on a dizzying, rushed trek to Mt. Kenya.

Short, explosive, unforgotten: The story of Ramparts Magazine and its lingering influence long after it was gone.

The companion book to the PBS series pays homage to America’s crown jewels, and the people who fought to save them.

The murderous hero of Showtime’s hit series is back -- married with family, hunting a new menacing foe -- in a new novel, our reviewer finds, that caters to the worst in readers.

The Talking Head’s book is a two-wheeled travelogue from a keen cultural observer.

The writer’s long struggles with depression give extra weight to her memoir on grief and the loss of her husband.

In this smart and well-paced thriller, former archaeologist Jonathan Marcus is a brainy action hero who delves into biblical lore and historical revisionism.

The author of “Into the Wild” and “Into Thin Air” looks into the tragic death of a football star-turned-soldier in Afghanistan and the U.S. Army’s maneuvers to conceal what really happened.

In the author’s new novel, characters follow a relic’s irresistible pull.

A young ambitious actor finds himself thwarted by his double in a novel that reimagines the theater world of 1970s New York.

The A-list writers are at the top of their game in this young-adult short story collection of all things nerdy.

A mysterious man and a tragic death prompt an otherwise stable couple to reexamine their roles and long years together.

Artists are in the business of simultaneously de-familiarizing and re-familiarizing us with the world around us.

They came from New York, the Midwest, the Southern states, a great exodus of young comics traveling west in search of a few minutes with Johnny Carson.

Enter the afterlife of Hatcher McCord, a news presenter marooned in hell. There, he encounters a who’s who of the historic and famous as well as his ex-wives.

The anthology offers a selection of Miyazaki’s thoughts about film, art and contemporary Japanese culture.

The debut novel set in South Africa during apartheid has well-written characters and humor, but is sometimes difficult to follow as it flits about adulthood, teen years and childhood.

The author fictionalizes the story of her mother’s flight from an unhappy arranged marriage and the many obstacles she faced.

The author creates genealogical fiction out of an anecdote culled from Carter’s 2002 memoir ‘Nothing to Fall Back On,’ but uneven storytelling weakens the effort.

A recently widowed former British TV news anchor frantically searches for meaning in this novel that knows its setting.

A passion for food leads the writer to eating disorders, diets and ultimately a healthier relationship with food.

Like gold standard writers Elmore Leonard and the late Donald Westlake, Joe R.

The late Swedish author’s cache of manuscripts given to his publisher just prior to his death yields a pulse-pounding follow-up to ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.’

Comparisons to Cormac McCarthy’s ‘No Country for Old Men’ may be unavoidable, but ‘Rain Gods’ is its own stylish slice of contemporary Texas noir.

Stories offer characters not revenge or redemption but the simple gift of acceptance.

The late author pulls off a seemingly impossible job: making an absurd conceit believable.

A dream jackpot win turns into a nightmare.

The writer brings his reportorial eye for detail and experience in the field to a story about a foreign correspondent in Kosovo seeking the leader of a band of Arab rebels.

A biography of Agatha Christie examines in detail her 1926 disappearance.

A compelling look at the birth and evolution of recording, and how it changed the way the world hears itself.

Waters’ first novel, which borrows liberally from some of her previous stories, is an intimate portrait of family.

Michael Shapiro’s almost too-inside account of Rickey’s innovative but ultimately doomed bid to overhaul the sport in 1958-60.

In the novel, a writer tries to tell a tale of romance in spite of, and sometimes with inspiration from, the censor.

The author brings wit and humor to the story of a group of friends in post-2001 America looking back on their activist ways in the 1960s.

Call it a love letter to the diversity, polyglot sprawl, complexities, contradictions, pitfalls, humanity and streetlife of the metropolis.

The enigmatic singer-songwriter emerges as a fascinating, if frustrating, subject to tackle.

Nimbly translated from its original German, this bizarre mystery-thriller manages to come together winningly in the end.

A disturbing chronicle of abuses suffered by women enlisted in the U.S. Army and serving in Iraq.

A sampling of views about parenthood and modern life from a writer who’s turned her blog into a lucrative site on the web.

The author (left) continues his urban chronicles/thrillers with a tale of redemption and the long journey there.

The author of intriguing historical mysteries returns with a reporter’s effort to probe the death -- murder? -- of a British industrialist in the years before World War I.

It’s the brash amid the brass as a once scantily clad dancer adapts to the starched-shirt Army life.

The author blurs the line -- too much -- between his prose and the renowned world explorer’s.

Without a father and struggling against fate, a young man in Morocco grows up in poverty until he makes a shocking discovery - his father isn’t dead.

The influential food writer and editor sifts through the life and legacy of her mother, mistakes, misery and all.

A memoir of growing up in extremely difficult circumstances in the City of Brotherly Love.

Regrets and reconciliation within ivy-covered walls.

Do I Owe You Something?: A Memoir of the Literary Life; Michael Mewshaw (Louisiana University Press: 226 pp., $29.95)

Haunting prose propels a murder mystery involving youths, their corrupted elders and a bleak landscape.

It’s a novel about stoners writing children’s tunes.

The story by Youzaburou Kanari, with art by Kuroko Yabuguchi, is a comedy-adventure manga series with a denunciation of the Iraq war.

A highly readable, interesting account of the actor’s rocky career and all-too-brief life.

The author (above) uses a wide canvas to chronicle Victorian lives of the theater.

Debunking myths and looking back on Dodger history and Walter O’Malley.

Facts - and possible solutions - from a longtime food industry exec.

A tell-all about life on the backlot with Tarzan and the gang.

Making a case for the benefits of the vegetarian lifestyle.

The story of a violent incident in an exclusive community illustrates how safety is one of humanity’s most precious resources.

The Kennedy patriarch in his Hollywood years: Maneuvering for studios, chorus girls, Gloria Swanson and laying the foundations of his family’s empire.

Raymond Chandler and Jonathan Lethem are the inspirations behind this debut mystery novel about a detective with narcolepsy.

A new thriller from a writer whose stories are as rich as any by Greene, Deighton or Le Carre.