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Book Reviews

What's that? You've never heard of a festival of fiction? Surely you're familiar with other festivals: Lollapalooza (festival of piercings), the US Festival (okay, maybe you're too young to remember that), arts and crafts festivals, and those blueberry, garlic, and egg festivals where you sample tasty local fare each summer. Well, the festival of fiction is tasty fare for the mind--and you have our personal pledge: we will not to try to sell you garlic ice cream, wind chimes, or a new nipple ring.


Cause of Death by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam, $25.95)

Thanks to Patricia Cornwell's passion for detail, Cause of Death, her seventh crime novel, reveals not only whodunit but scads of other information as well: how to conduct an autopsy, how to determine a uranium sample's isotope, and how to prevent fresh mozzarella from "weeping" as it bakes in a lasagna. Such helpful hints arise while Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Virginia's chief medical examiner (and the subject of all Cornwell's fiction), slices and dices through a tangle of troubles that begin when an investigative reporter mysteriously dies at a Navy shipyard. His underwater death launches a so-so plot (featuring a Waco-style cult and nuclear terrorism), that becomes increasingly loopy as Scarpetta's investigation progresses. Although the tepid story might provoke grumbles from longtime Cornwell fans, rest assured that Cause of Death is nonetheless a terrific read. Cornwell's journalistic writing progresses at a crisp clip, and Scarpetta's engaging narrative reveals an appealing (yet not always sympathetic) protagonist. But it is the book's vivid settings and chilling mood that distinguish it from standard mystery fare. Cornwell, herself a former morgue employee, pens such palpable accounts of Scarpetta's world that an attentive reader may feel qualified to assist with the deducing doctor's next autopsy. -- Ian Hodder

A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley (Norton, $23.00)

Presidential praise can do a lot for a writer: back in the early sixties, J.F.K.'s endorsement of Ian Fleming put the creator of James Bond on the best-seller list, and Bill Clinton's seal of approval has done the same for Walter Mosley. A Little Yellow Dog is the fifth novel in Mosley's Easy Rawlins series, which began with Devil in a Blue Dress (filmed last year with Denzel Washington ). Easy's not a private eye in the traditional sense; he's just a working-class black man trying to get by in post-World War II Los Angeles, and as such he has seen more than his share of trouble. Yellow Dog is set in 1963, but the nascent Civil Rights Movement has yet to touch Easy's L.A. neighborhood. When a pair of low-rent black criminals turn up dead, Easy gets caught between white cops, black gangsters, and a femme fatale who's willing to risk everything for Pharoah, her little yellow dog. Like the best detective fiction, Yellow Dog is fast on its feet, heavy on atmosphere, and filled with memorable characters. What sets it apart, though, is Mosley's take on the black experience: like the playwright August Wilson, he is in the process of composing an informal history of twentieth-century black America, a major accomplishment for what is often considered a minor genre. -- Jeff Schwager

Anything Considered by Peter Mayle (Knopf, $23)

Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence (1989, Knopf) spent 154 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list, was made into an excellent four-part mini-series, and is one of the most-loved travel books of the past decade. He followed up that book's success with the nonfiction Toujours Provence, and two novels: his overambitious debut, Hotel Pastis, and A Dog's Life. With his latest novel, Anything Considered, Mayle returns to the rich, descriptive prose that made his Provence books such successes. Set in provincial France and Monaco, Anything Considered follows the adventures of an English ex-patriate named Bennett who places an ad seeking employment in the International Herald Tribune. The wealthy, mysterious man who hires Bennett sends him on a rollercoaster ride of industrial espionage (involving a formula for cultivating truffles), romance, Japanese hitmen, Corsican mobsters, and excessive (yet discerning) eating and drinking. Bennett excels in that last category; and in the end, his decadence--rather than Mayle's plot--carries the book. Don't get us wrong, Anything Considered has enough twists and turns to keep even the most jaded beach reader engaged, but the real substance of the book is in the details: the meals that last for hours (and pages), the opulent interiors, and the sun-drenched exteriors. It's a book best read in the summer sun--with plenty of gourmet snacks on-hand. -- Valerie Moore


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