Publishers Weekly - October 30, 2017

pany rather than into the arms of his wife.” Eri sets out on her own to the remote house where her friends are gathering, but soon rues her decision. Her solitary trek up the silent and isolated mountain leaves her feeling vulnerable, at risk of being buried by the snow. Her anxieties increase when she reaches her destination, only to find it empty but for the sound of unintelligible whispers. Connelly does a good job keeping the reader off-balance throughout this enigmatic, ambiguous tale. (BookLife)

SF/Fantasy/Horror

★ The Father of Lies

K.J. Parker. Subterranean, $40 (544p)

ISBN 978-1-59606-852-0

Now that reclusive grimdark fantasy author Parker has been revealed to be the alter ego of humorous fantasist Tom Holt, he’s free to deliver this large reprint collection that shows off his entire very wide range, from the funny and even absurd works usually produced as Holt to the sharp and sly stories associated with the Parker name. Unlike his longer Parker novels, which tend to focus on economics and human conflict, these tales often feature classic genre tropes such as magic and gods. The centerpiece (literally and figuratively), “The Devil You Know,” features the con artist and philosopher Saloninus (familiar from Parker’s novella “Blue and Gold”) negotiating with a devil for an extended life span. It’s an old concept—each knows the other’s trying to pull a fast one—but the two characters play so well off each other that the story works as an updated and entertaining Socratic dialogue. “Downfall of the Gods,” in which a goddess is forced to assign a task to a mortal she doesn’t want to forgive, borders on Holt-style goofiness at times (“when you gotterdammerung, you gotterdammerung”). Parker’s wit shines in the shortest tale, “Told by an Idiot,” in which an array of peculiar artifacts and entities—a demon in a bottle, a thinly disguised Shakespeare, the first copy of the Book of Job (written in Job’s own handwriting)—shape yet another story of a man finding a way to get his wish. Fans of both Parker and Holt will enjoy this fine collection. (Feb.)

says he is being detained on bogus drug charges. When Charlie is released, he promises to help, but, before he can even open an official file, Steve is found dead in his cell. While the authorities claim it was suicide, Charlie and the victim’s sister, Sophie Duran, know it was murder.

Wilkshire writes with confidence as the action moves from Moscow to Ottawa, Berlin, and the French Riviera. It’s a fun ride for readers who like their international thrillers laced with humor. (Dec.)

Eri, a Japanese Ghost Story

Martin Connolly. Snowchild, $7.68 trade paper (106p) ISBN 978-1-911100-00-3

Eri, the heroine of Connelly’s haunting
novella set in contemporary Japan, feels
neglected by her boyfriend, Toru, a conve-
nience store employee whose priority
always seems to be his job. He disappoints
again when he can’t join her on a planned
get-together with friends on an unnamed
mountain, increasing her fears that he will
become enslaved to his work. As Naoko, a
friend of Eri’s, has warned, “even the best
men, with the very best intentions, would
ultimately fall into the arms of his com-
other Iranians in London who are partici-
pating in talks with the U.S. about Iran’s
nuclear weapons program; someone within
the CIA must have leaked the information
to the Mossad. Cooke’s successor orders a
mole hunt. The clues that Red Cell leader
Kyra Stryker uses to identify the mole
strain credulity, undermining a taut plot
in which she and her allies race to avert a
wider conflict. Hopefully, Henshaw will
do better next time. Agent: Jason Yarn,
Paradigm Agency. (Dec.)

The Moscow Code

Nick Wilkshire. Dundurn (IPS, U.S. dist.; UTP, Canadian dist.), $15.99 trade paper (296p)

ISBN 978-1-4597-3714-3

The lively second book in Wilkshire’s series featuring the quick-witted Canadian diplomat and amateur sleuth Charlie Hillier (after Escape to Cuba) sees Charlie posted to Moscow. A night out with an old high school friend takes an unexpected turn when their passports are stolen and then they are arrested as foreigners with no ID. But while spending the night in a police holding cell, Charlie meets a fellow Canadian, Steve Liepa, who

★ A Lady in Shadows: A Madeleine Karno Mystery Lene Kaaberbøl, trans. from the Danish by Elisabeth Dyssegaard. Atria, $16 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-4767- 3142-1

Kaaberbøl’s exhilarating sequel to 2015’s Doctor Death finds budding forensic pathologist Madeleine Karno shaken by the discovery of a woman’s mutilated body in a coal yard, the corpse’s abdomen sliced open. As the streets of Varbourg, France, erupt in violence following the assassination of President Marie François Sadi Carnot by an Italian anarchist in 1894, Karno, who’s also just been accepted as a physiology student at the local university, and with the Commissaire des Morts attempt to first identify the victim, then solve the woman’s brutal murder. Newspapers jump on the similarities to the murders of London’s Jack the Ripper, and fear ripples through the community at the thought that France might have its own Ripper. Karno eventually identifies the victim as Rosalba Lombardi, one of the city’s numerous prostitutes. As her clandestine investigation continues, Karno discovers disturbing facts about the murder that bring up female rights issues as relevant then as they are today. Kaaberbøl has created a genuinely tough, empathetic female heroine in an era when women were meant to be seen and not heard. Agent: Lars Ringhof, Lars Ringhof Agency (Denmark). (Dec.)