From the authors site: http://www.karen-white.com/coloroflight.shtml

The Color of Light



With a lyrical Southern voice, Karen White delivers an emotionally moving novel of a woman in search of a new beginning…and of a man haunted by the past.

At thirty-two, Jillian Parrish finally finds the courage to take charge of her life and discover what really lives in the dark space under her bed. Recently divorced, she takes her young daughter to seek refuge and solace on Pawleys Island, South Carolina—Jillian's only source of happy childhood memories. Summers spent at her grandmother's beach house were Jillian's sanctuary from indifferent parents until her best friend, Lauren Mills, disappeared.

Linc Rising, Lauren's boyfriend was a suspect in Lauren's disappearance. Although Jillian never doubted his innocence, her parents whisked her back home to Atlanta, and she never got a chance to tell him. Now a resentful Linc is back on Pawleys Island, renovating the old Mills house. As ghosts of the past return to haunt them, and Jillian's daughter begins having eerie conversation with an imaginary friend named Lauren, Jillian and Linc will uncover the truth about Lauren and about the feelings they have kept buried for sixteen years…

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Another really enjoyable read by Karen White. Finished it in about 6 hours in one sitting and loved every moment. She captures the beauty of the coast expertly.

From Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=4WEKAAAACAAJ&dq=inauthor:"Diana+Gabaldon"

In her long awaited new novel, Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon continues the remarkable story of Claire and Jamie Fraser that began with the classic Outlander, and its bestselling sequels, Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager.

Cast ashore in the American colonies, the Frasers are faced with a bleak choice: return to a Scotland fallen into famine and poverty, or seize the risky chance of a new life in the New World—menaced by Claire's certain knowledge of the coming Revolution.

Still, a highlander is born to risk—and so is a time-traveler. Their daughter, Brianna, is safe—they think—on the other side of a dangerous future; their lives are their own to venture as they will. With faith in themselves and in each other, they seek a new beginning among the exiled Scottish Highlanders of the Cape Fear, in the fertile river valleys of the Colony of North Carolina.

Even in the New World, though, the Frasers find their hope of peace threatened from without and within; by the British Crown and by Jamie's aunt, Jocasta MacKenzie, last of the MacKenzies of Leoch.

A hunger for freedom drives Jamie to a Highlander's only true refuge: the mountains. And here at last, with no challenge to their peace—save wild animals, Indians, and the threat of starvation—the Frasers establish a precarious foothold in the wilderness, secure in the knowledge that even war cannot invade their mountain sanctuary.

But history spares no one, and when Brianna follows her mother into the past, not even the mountains can shelter a Highlander. For Brianna too has an urgent quest: not only to find the mother she has lost and the father she has never met, but to save them both from a future that only she can see.


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This was the first in the series I read myself. The other books I have listened too on the ipod. Listening is more enjoyable because the reader uses the correct accents and pronouciations - I found myself stumbling over word meanings.

More violence, more time travel, more rape. But the story goes on.

From amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Until-Southern-Vampire-Mysteries/dp/B000OCXHRW/ref=pd_cp_b_1

Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life--and one of her coworkers checks out...Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea. A fun, fast, funny, and wonderfully intriguing blend of vampire and mystery that's hard to put down, and should not be missed. (Susan Sizemore)

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Quick read, not bad. I look forward to the rest of the series when it comes up on my library card :)

From the author's site: http://www.kathyreichs.com/fatalvoyage.htm



Temperance Brennan hears the news on her car radio. An Air TransSouth flight has gone down in the mountains of western North Carolina, taking with it eighty-eight passengers and crew. As a forensic anthropologist and a member of the regional DMORT team, Tempe rushes to the scene to assist in body recovery and identification.

Tempe has seen death many times, working with the medical examiners in North Carolina and Montreal, but never has tragedy struck with such devastation. She finds a field of carnage: torsos in trees, limbs strewn among bursting suitcases and smoldering debris. Many of the dead are members of a university soccer team. Is Tempe's daughter, Katy, among them?

Frantic with worry, Tempe joins colleagues from the FBI, the NTSB, and other agencies to search for explanations. Was the plane brought down by a bomb, an insurance plot, a political assassination, or simple mechanical failure? And what about the prisoner on the plane who was being extradited to Canada? Did someone want him silenced forever?

Even more puzzling for Tempe is a disembodied foot found near the debris field. Tempe's microscopic analysis suggests it could not have belonged to any passenger. Whose foot is it, and where is the rest of the body? And what about the disturbing evidence Tempe discovers in the soil outside a remote mountain enclave? What secrets lie hidden there, and why are certain people eager to stop Tempe's investigation? Is she learning too much? Coming too close?

With help from Montreal detective Andrew Ryan, who has his own sad reason for being at the crash, and from a very special dog named Boyd, Tempe calls upon deep reserves of courage and upon her forensic skill to uncover a shocking, multilayered tale of deceit and depravity.

Written with the riveting authenticity that only world-class forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs can provide, Fatal Voyage pairs witty, elegant prose with pulse-pounding storytelling in a tour de force worthy of crime writing's new superstar.


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Typical great Reichs read. It's engaging, quick and a challenge to figure out.

From the author's site: http://www.jodipicoult.com/handle-with-care.html




Synopsis:
When Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, they are devastated – she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to make ends meet to cover Willow’s medical expenses, Charlotte thinks she has found an answer. If she files a wrongful birth lawsuit against her ob/gyn for not telling her in advance that her child would be born severely disabled, the monetary payouts might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to get up in a court of law and say in public that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she’d known about the disability in advance – words that her husband can’t abide, that Willow will hear, and that Charlotte cannot reconcile. And the ob/gyn she’s suing isn’t just her physician – it’s her best friend.

Handle With Care explores the knotty tangle of medical ethics and personal morality. When faced with the reality of a fetus who will be disabled, at which point should an OB counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How disabled is TOO disabled? And as a parent, how far would you go to take care of someone you love? Would you alienate the rest of your family? Would you be willing to lie to your friends, to your spouse, to a court? And perhaps most difficult of all – would you admit to yourself that you might not actually be lying?


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Just like her other books - this one is powerful. You start thinking "I know exactly how I feel about this", then she manages to bring you through the point of view of so many different characters. By the end, all you can think is "I don't even know what to feel anymore".

From the authors site: http://www.cliffmcnish.com/angel.html

Two girls are inextricably linked by destiny, not choice.

Stephanie is friendless, strange, a misfit.

Freya can't stop seeing angels.

But when one of those angels begins to stalk her, its shadow following her everywhere, Freya is forced to make decisions from which there is no turning back.

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A quick read while subbing. Interesting, a little dark.

From the author's site: http://www.karen-white.com/memoryofwater.shtml



On the night their mother drowns trying to ride out a storm in a sailboat, sisters Marnie and Diana Maitland discover there is more than one kind of death. There is the death of innocence, of love, and of hope. Each sister harbors a secret about what really happened that night—secrets that will erode their lives as they grow into adulthood.

After ten years of silence between the sisters, Marnie is called back to the South Carolina Lowcountry by Diana’s ex-husband, Quinn. His son has returned from a sailing trip with his emotionally unstable mother, and he is deeply disturbed and refusing to speak. In order to help the traumatized boy, Marnie must reopen old wounds and bring the darkest memories of their past to the surface. And she must confront Diana, before they all go under…

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I really enjoyed this. Families are complicated and unraveling the stories they tell themselves in order to function is fascinating.

From Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=zQoGAAAACAAJ&dq=inauthor:"Diana+Gabaldon"&lr=

n this rich, vibrant tale, Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that began with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber. Sweeping us from the battlefields of eighteenth-century Scotland to the exotic West Indies, Diana Gabaldon weaves magic once again in an exhilarating and utterly unforgettable novel....

Their love affair happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named Jamie Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her ... and her body still cries out for him in her dreams.

When she discovers that Jamie may have survived, Claire must choose her destiny. And as time and space come full circle, she must find the courage to face what awaits her ... the deadly intrigues raging in a divided Scotland ... and the daring voyage into the dark unknown that lies beyond the standing stones.

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The story begins to get interesting now. I can see how the story might get a little better.

From Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=AloV16fwhZkC&q=Diana+Gabaldon&dq=Diana+Gabaldon&pgis=1


From the author of Outlander... a magnificent epic that once again sweeps us back in time to the drama and passion of 18th-century Scotland...

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones ...about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ...and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his ....

Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire's spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart ...in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising ...and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves...

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Good to find out how Claire ended up back in the modern times and also what came of the baby.

From google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=IM1nVGX7XU0C&q=Diana+Gabaldon&dq=Diana+Gabaldon&pgis=1

Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another...

In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an "outlander"—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life ...and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.


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I heard so much great things about this series, I decided to try it out.

While the story is interesting, talk about violent. Apparently there was LOTS of sexual violence in the 1700's in Scotland. Nearly everyone is raped by nearly everyone else at some point in the story. Quite disturbing.

I'll continue with the series though, because I already have it from the library.

From the author's site: http://www.jackiemitchard.com/mitchard-cageofstars.htm





Overview
This is the dilemma faced by Ronnie Swan, a sheltered young girl from a deeply religious family, whose childhood ends when she witnesses the murder of her two younger sisters. Not quite thirteen, Ronnie is babysitting on a bright fall day, hiding in the shed as she waits for her sisters to find her. Instead of their excited laughter, there is only silence. When Ronnie opens the door, it is to a sight that will crack her life in two. One minute a carefree girl, the next an over-burdened adult in a child’s body, Ronnie’s rage and grief burn down to a single hot coal: She will seek her own vengeance against Scott Early, a young graduate student from Colorado who suffers from schizophrenic illness. Given treatment instead of punishment, he has been spared the fate Ronnie believes that he deserves.

At first driven nearly mad with grief, Ronnie’s parents finally find peace in forgiveness, and can go on with their lives. Ronnie cannot. The beliefs that once were the rock beneath her feet have become the walls of her prison.

And so, when Scott Early is released from treatment to live with his wife and newborn baby daughter, Ronnie again becomes a changeling – this time deliberately. She relinquishes her home and identity to ingratiate herself with the Earlys, now living in California. But as Ronnie comes to know the family, she begins to struggle with what she once knew for a fact, that the Earlys must experience exactly what she and her parents endured, except without the element of violence. Headstrong in the logic of youth, Ronnie wonders if anyone who has caused such misery deserves joy, and if the baby girl is really safe with such a father, stable as he now seems. Her chance to act on her plan arrives; and Ronnie hesitates – just one moment too long.

It was this chance to grapple with a character’s moral struggle, and with those ancient questions (such as, do two wrongs make a right?) that gave rise to Cage of Stars. Ronnie is essentially prisoner to a universe in which right and wrong are clearly marked; but good and evil slip into shades of gray. I chose for her family to be Mormons because I wanted her to have been raised somewhat “apart” from the world, among traditions that others would find curious, but not so much as, for example, Amish folk. She needed to be both different from and fully engaged with the larger world. As both a Mormon and a country girl, innocent Ronnie seemed somehow even more vulnerable than a sophisticated girl would be.

As I did when I read about the events that later inspired The Deep End of the Ocean, I’m the one who always wonders, what happens afterward? What happens when the doors close, the friends go back to their own lives, and the stories disappear from the newspaper? That’s where I step in.

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Wow. What a powerful story of responsibility. I really enjoyed it.

From amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Sammys-House-Kristin-Gore/dp/1401309496/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238798090&sr=1-1)




From Publishers Weekly
The sequel to Gore's debut Sammy's Hill (under film development) finds White House aide Samantha "Sammy" Joyce, now in her late 20s and suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, still handling crisis after crisis. Much trusted by now vice-president Robert Gary in her role as health research staffer, Sammy discovers President Wye is secretly drinking again. Then there's the president's father, who, while in a nursing home, may have been sexually accosted by an art teacher—and who dies leaving behind an out-of-wedlock infant. There's also the famous, short movie star, on drugs and with a very large head, who seems to be stalking Sammy. There are camel incidents on a conference trip to India, a reality TV show of the life of the former (and apparently senile) President Pile and possible leaks by a fellow staffer. There are any number of doings with Sammy's nearest and dearest, including highs and lows with Sammy's boyfriend, Washington Post journalist Charlie Lawton. The sense of overload may be intentional, but it's hard not to wish there were less. Still, the book is funny, and the wonk's-eye view of how legislation and trade deals get done (the author is Al Gore's middle daughter) is illuminating, and even inspiring. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition

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I loved Sammy's Hill and this was just as good. Quirky, funny and very smart - Sammy is a joy to follow around.

From the author's site: http://www.jackiemitchard.com/mitchard-stillsummer.htm





Overview
When four friends who ruled the school twenty years ago gather for an idyllic sailing vacation – meant to comfort Olivia, who has returned home a widow after twenty years abroad – they expect two weeks of gossip, sunbathing and drinks with little umbrellas.

Instead, two days into their crossing, a single small mistake turns paradise a sun-baked hell.

The same elements that combined to make this trip an adventure in paradise combine in for survival. Surrounded by water, but with almost none to drink, with refrigerators filled with gourmet food rotting before they can used it, and a deluxe communication system ruined in an instant, the women must hide from the punishing sun and use all their strength and intelligence to try to outwit nature, their own demons and human predators.

What happens when friendship must face the ultimate test? Does the better nature prevail or is it everyone for herself?

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I didn't read the jacket of this one before I started it. I just put it on the ipod and went on my merry way. So when it was time to start a new book, I put it on. At first it seemed fun. A summer traveling story. I listened to it while puttering around, doing errands.

But while I was driving out of town this weekend and listening to it, it took a dark turn. The light, happy summer story turned dark and tragic. It was full of danger, murder and heartbreak. More than once it made me cry. It haunted my sleep last night.

I hope that now I've finished it, I can put it behind me. It was a great story, just so much darker than I expected.

From amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Flower-Children-Maxine-Swann/dp/1594489459



This wistful, episodic second novel by Swann (Serious Girls) is made up of vignettes about four sibling "flower children" whose parents are Pennsylvania farm country back-to-the-land hippies. Swann portrays the free-floating '70s coming-of-age of these four siblings—Lu, Maeve (who narrates much of the novel), Tuck and Clyde—who delight in running freely in the countryside, but grow embarrassed by the unconventional practices of their politically active, casual-dressing parents. Their parents, Sam, a Harvard graduate, and Dee, a gardener and artist, built their own house, and though they aim to raise their children in an ideal world "in which nothing is lied about, whispered about, and nothing is ever concealed," the parents separate, and subsequent storylike chapters delineate their children's sometimes rocky confrontation with the world of TVs, junk food and schoolyard cliques. The parents' transient love interests make impressions on the children: Dee's live-in boyfriend, Bobby, avenges the shooting of the children's dogs by local hunters; later, the children set out to rid themselves of Sam's latest squeeze, a glamorous but dim-witted psychologist. Swann wisely forgoes childlike stream-of-consciousness narration in favor of lean, direct storytelling, a choice that makes this more substantial and rewarding than the vast majority of coming-of-age novels. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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This was a quick, enjoyable read. No horrors, no nightmares, just a very intriguing look at life through the eyes of the children of hippies.

From the authors site: http://www.kathyreichs.com/mondaymouring.htm





Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for both North Carolina and Quebec, has come from Charlotte to Montreal during the bleak days of December to testify as an expert witness at a murder trial.

She should be going over her notes, but instead she's digging in the basement of a pizza parlor. Not fun. Freezing cold. Crawling rats. And now, the skeletonized remains of three young women. How did they get there? When did they die?

Homicide detective Luc Claudel, never Tempe's greatest fan, believes the bones are historic. Not his case, not his concern. The pizza parlor owner found nineteenth-century buttons in the cellar with the skeletons. Claudel takes them as an indicator of the bones' antiquity.

But something doesn't make sense. Tempe examines the bones in her lab and establishes approximate age with Carbon 14. Further study of tooth enamel tells her where the women were born. If she's right, Claudel has three recent murders on his hands. Definitely his case.

Detective Andrew Ryan, meanwhile, is acting mysteriously. What are those private phone calls he takes in the other room, and why does he suddenly disappear just when Tempe is beginning to hope he might be a permanent part of her life? Looks like more lonely nights for Tempe and Birdie, her cat.

As Tempe searches for answers in both her personal and professional lives, she finds herself drawn deep into a web of evil from which there may be no escape. Women have disappeared, never to return....Tempe may be next.

With its powerful mix of nail-biting suspense and cutting-edge forensic science, Monday Mourning is the best yet from this superbly gifted, megastar author who, as New York Newsday says, is "the real thing."

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This one broke my heart. I made the mistake of reading it before bed and had to stay up to get it finished. It invaded my dreams. I know this kind of horror happens, but it is so tragic.

From the authors site: http://www.kathyreichs.com/deajadead.htm




Kathy Reichs blasts into Patricia Cornwell territory -- and onto the New York Times bestseller list -- with this critically acclaimed debut novel inspired by Reichs' own career. Dr. Temperance Brennan, the wry, impassioned director of forensic anthropology for the province of Quebec, is driven to unravel shocking acts of violence by reading the bones of the dead.

In the year since Tempe left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. But when an unidentified female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in garbage bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern within the grisly handiwork -- and her professional detachment gives way to a harrowing search for a killer in the city's winding streets. With little help from the police, Tempe calls on her expertise, honed in the isolated intensity of the autopsy suite, to investigate on her own. But her determined chase is about to place those closest to her -- her best friend and her daughter -- in mortal danger....

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Finally got around to reading the book that started it all. So interesting to be introduced to characters that I know so well, to see characters that have since died. A good start.

From the author's site: http://www.kathyreichs.com/devil_bones.htm



Following her most successful book to date, Kathy Reichs -- international number one bestselling author, forensic anthropologist, and producer of the Fox television hit Bones -- returns to Charlotte, North Carolina, where Temperance Brennan encounters a deadly mix of voodoo, Santería, and devil worship in her quest to identify two young victims.

In a house under renovation, a plumber uncovers a cellar no one knew about, and makes a rather grisly discovery -- a decapitated chicken, animal bones, and cauldrons containing beads, feathers, and other relics of religious ceremonies. In the center of the shrine, there is the skull of a teenage girl. Meanwhile, on a nearby lakeshore, the headless body of a teenage boy is found by a man walking his dog.

Nothing is clear -- neither when the deaths occurred, nor where. Was the skull brought to the cellar or was the girl murdered there? Why is the boy's body remarkably well preserved? Led by a preacher turned politician, citizen vigilantes blame devil worshippers and Wiccans. They begin a witch hunt, intent on seeking revenge.

Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan -- "five-five, feisty, and forty-plus" -- is called in to investigate, and a complex and gripping tale unfolds in this, Kathy Reichs's eleventh taut, always surprising, scientifically fascinating mystery.

With a popular series on Fox -- now in its third season and in full syndication -- Kathy Reichs has established herself as the dominant talent in forensic mystery writing. Devil Bones features Reichs's signature blend of forensic descriptions that "chill to the bone" (Entertainment Weekly) and the surprising plot twists that have made her books phenomenal bestsellers in the United States and around the world.

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This one was incredibly good. I actually found myself sobbing at points, I was so involved in the story.

From the author's site: http://www.kathyreichs.com/

Forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs exploded onto bestseller lists worldwide with her phenomenal debut novel Déjà Dead -- and introduced "[a] brilliant heroine" (Glamour) in league with Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta. Dr. Temperance Brennan, Quebec's director of forensic anthropology, now returns in a thrilling new investigation into the secrets of the dead.

In the bitter cold of a Montreal winter, Tempe Brennan is digging for a corpse buried more than a century ago. Although Tempe thrives on such enigmas from the past, it's a chain of contemporary deaths and disappearances that has seized her attention -- and she alone is ideally placed to make a chilling connection among the seemingly unrelated events. At the crime scene, at the morgue, and in the lab, Tempe probes a mystery that sweeps from a deadly Quebec fire to startling discoveries in the Carolinas, and culminates in Montreal with a terrifying showdown -- a nerve-shattering test of both her forensic expertise and her skills for survival.

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Very interesting. Makes you think about how easy it is for cults to form and for destructive leaders to cause havoc.

From the author's site: http://www.kathyreichs.com/

Book Description
Temperance Brennan, like her creator Kathy Reichs, is a brilliant, sexy forensic anthropologist called on to solve the toughest cases. But for Tempe, the discovery of a young girl's skeleton in Acadia, Canada, is more than just another assignment. Évangéline, Tempe's childhood best friend, was also from Acadia. Named for the character in the Longfellow poem, Évangéline was the most exotic person in Tempe's eight-year-old world. When Évangéline disappeared, Tempe was warned not to search for her, that the girl was "dangerous."

Thirty years later, flooded with memories, Tempe cannot help wondering if this skeleton could be the friend she lost so many years ago. And what is the meaning of the strange skeletal lesions found on the bones of the young girl?

Meanwhile, Tempe's beau, Ryan, investigates a series of cold cases. Three girls dead. Four missing. Could the New Brunswick skeleton be part of the pattern? As Tempe draws on the latest advances in forensic anthropology to penetrate the past, Ryan hunts down a serial predator.

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Another really enjoyable read from Kathy Reichs.

From amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Bobby-Gold-Stories-Bourdain-Anthony/dp/1582342334

Amazon.com Review
Author Anthony Bourdain is a talented chef whose two previous thrillers (Bone in the Throat, Gone Bamboo) were seasoned with the kind of culinary details that delighted the Food Channel-loving fans of his successful nonfiction books. The foodies will slaver over a wonderfully wrought scene in his latest caper novel--it's set at a chic Manhattan restaurant where a gourmand gangster with a picky palate turns the chef's menu upside down and stiffs the poor waiter who has to accommodate him. But the rest of this otherwise slight and unseasoned novel doesn't live up to that wonderful appetizer. Its protagonist is Bobby Gold, an ex-con who works as a security guard at Eddie Fish's Nightclub and is involved with a sexy sous-chef named Nikki whose preparation of a special meal for her lover reads like Bourdain's version of foreplay. But when Nikki rips off the restaurant receipts and Bobby gets on the wrong side of a mob plan to kill Eddie's appetite for good while recouping the money, Bourdain's plotting goes sour and the ending fails to satisfy. Still, it's a nice side dish to go with a good cookbook, or even one of the author's zany true stories of what goes on behind the swinging doors of many real-life restaurants (Kitchen Confidential, A Cook's Tour). --Jane Adams

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Quick read and totally enjoyable.