The summer may be winding down, but there is still time to get in one's summer reading. Here are a few suggestions.
"The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure by Jack Handey" (Grand Central, $19). The first novel of the "Saturday Night Live" creator of "Deep Thoughts." Two guys with the need to flee leads to a witchy travel agent, a treasure map and the quest for the Golden Monkey in funky Honolulu. Sweet Leilani adds to the mix. Absurd fun.
"Fiend" by Peter Stenson (Crown, $22). From rehab to apocalypse. Chase and his band of merry meth-heads need to find a way to cook their next crystal amid an infestation of zombies. It sounds like another riff on the overdone zombie apocalypse, but Stenson's novel is a serious allegory about the demons of drug addiction by someone who's been there.
"Long Fall from Heaven" by George Wier and Milton T. Burton (Cinco Punto Press, $15,95). While trying to solve the murder at hand, two Galveston ex-cops, Cueball and Micah, find themselves involved with a serial killer whose trail stretches from 1987 back to World War II. Well-crafted and deep in Galveston history.
"Saving Laura" by Jim Satterfield (Oceanview, $26.95). Former Oklahoma City native Satterfield tells an action-packed tale of drugs, deception and defiance in 1979 Aspen. Lee steals money and drugs from a big-time coke dealer, then attempts to rescue his girlfriend from the same guy. He meets a couple of kids trying to emulate spree killers Charles Starkweather and Caril-Ann Fugate, as well as a zealot DEA agent - each with his or her own agenda.
"Cemetery Lake" by Paul Cleve (Atria Books, $16). New Zealander Cleve is among the hottest of crime-writing imports to this country. Private eye Tate has - like so many others in this profession - a dark side. It helps him focus. When the coffins and the bodies in a graveyard don't match up, Tate wonders why. A relentless killer, a brooding hunter, much action and wisdom from unexpected places. New Zealand is alive with more than hobbits.
"The Execution of Noa P. Singleton" by Elizabeth L. Silver (Crown, $25). Silver's first novel is hardly an insubstantial beach read. A few months before her scheduled execution, Singleton receives a visit from her victim's mother, an influential attorney who says, "Not so fast with the finale." Why now? It may profoundly affect your stand on the death penalty, whatever you opinion might be. Superior storytelling.
"The Age of Ice" by J. M. Sidorova (Scribner, $26). Born in a Russian ice palace in 1740, Alex is immune to the cold. It helps him live a long time. His search for the why of it takes him across thousands of miles and a couple of centuries meeting many historical figures. Exceptional prose. Not easy to categorize but "amazing" should cover it.
"A Treacherous Paradise" by Henning Mankell (Knopf, $26.95). At 19, Hanna Renstrom leaves Sweden for Australia in 1904. After two marriages and divorces Down Under, she lands in Portuguese East Africa, where she has inherited a bordello. She is an outcast from whites because of her gender and profession, and from the blacks who work for her. How she emerges from all the isms - race, sex, class, etc. - is a story of honor and integrity.
"Island of the White Rose" by R. Ira Harris (Bridge Works, $24.95). In 1950s Cuba, not everyone who hated Batista loved Castro. Father Pedro finds his collar too tight, his country too torn. He forsakes his vows and takes up arms to help the Fidelistas, only to discover that the lesser of two evils is still evil. From there he resets his moral compass and goes underground to a new calling. A finely wrought story of sacrifice and the pain of revolution.
"The Shining Girls" by Lauren Beukes (Mulholland Books, $26). Young women with brilliant futures, each from a different era, are being exterminated by a serial killer from the past. The house he finds demands their sacrifice. The door provides the way. One victim survives and goes looking for her assailant. H.G. Wells, Stieg Larsson and William Gibson might have consulted on this one. Fine writing and excellent narrative control make this a good twist on an old war-horse tale. Creepy with high wow factor.
Terry Collins is a Tulsa writer and book reviewer.
Original Print Headline: 10 Novels Make Solid Summer Reading
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