Lean Mean Thirteen

Stephanie Plum rampages through another reckless romp. Threatened by flame-throwers, menaced by thugs, attacked by exploding beavers, it's just another day in the Burg for our intrepid bail enforcer. Surrounded, supported and thwarted by her motley crew - handsome cop Morelli, lithe dangerman Ranger, spandex decked ex 'ho Lula, hideous Joyce Barnhardt, gun-toting Grandma Mazur, and fed my her long suffering mother - Stephanie finds herself prime suspect in the murder of her ex-husband (and Joyce-plougher) Dickie Orr. She must solve the crime, collar bond skippers, eat pizza, lasagne, cake and macaroni cheese, all while juggling the manly lusts of Morelli & Ranger, and facing her fears in a midnight cemetary. Oh, and she wrecks another car.

Lovers of Janet Evanovich's cool & messy broad will be thouroughly satisfied. And if you haven't met Stephanie yet - go and do it right now.

Blindsight

Maurice Gee is one of new Zealand's best writers of fiction. In Blindsight he achingly unravels the entwined family relationships of the Ferrys, in particular the brother and sister, as narrated by the now old Alice. An unknown young man arrives on her doorstep and his soft insistence breaks open her carapace, and reveals the darkness at the heart of her family. "Father taught us how not to love" is the first line of this novel, and by the time it is repeated as the ending I felt wrenched by this story, yet strangely calm. Gee's prose is incisive and unsentimental - as is his protagonist. He has the ability to involve the reader with his characters, who scarcely seem to be characters but living beings with all their faults and regrets, yet all their painful ability to - yes - love.