In Dead Reckoning by Susan LaTour and Pierre LaTour (St Martin’s
Press, $21.95, ISBN 0 312 13958 6), chemistry professor Catherine Lakey
lives in two worlds, one of which is secret. When Catherine disappears,
apparently without trace, her niece Nancy arrives to discover clues which
indicate that her aunt left intentionally. Nancy sets out to find her aunt with
the help of Catherine’s colleague Frank. Meanwhile, the professor’s sometime
lover is found dead of apparently natural causes. Are these events linked, and
how? The mystery elements of this story are fairly predictable, but there
is one
good twist, and the interactions between Nancy and Frank make good reading.

In George Mahoney’s life, science means refrigerators, which he has designed
for years. However, when his long-time office mate is replaced with the young
genius Niagara, George begins to compare his life with the life he’d like to
have had—that standard mid-life crisis. Niagara spends her spare
time with
old radios and satellite dishes trying to listen to the dead. She believes that
she can find The Frequency of Souls (Chatto & Windus,
ÂŁ15.99,
ISBN 0 7011 6548 0). Mary Kay Zuraleff’s first novel is a delightful
portrait of
average but unusual people, superbly drawn to keep the reader’s sympathy. I’ve
long been attached to my own fridge, but will never look at it in quite
the same
way again.

While arguments rage about what happens after death, the living death of a
coma also presents problems. Where are we when we are in a coma? Are we
aware of
the real world or do we spend the time in our own private landscape? Will
Rabjohns is a famous wildlife photographer, thrown into a coma by an encounter
with a polar bear. As his friends hover over his unconscious figure, Will
relives a strange adolescent encounter. On the run after a family crisis, Will
meets up with Jacob and Rosa, two unusual, timeless beings who introduce
Will to
their peculiar and possibly evil world. Clive Barker’s latest novel,
Sacrament (HarperCollins, ÂŁ15.99, ISBN 0 00 223561 7), is more
supernatural than SF, and has a lot of strange sex and mystic philosophy.
Still,
it’s an interesting read if you like chillers.

Falling more clearly in the SF category is Maureen McHugh’s Half the Day
is Night (Orbit, ÂŁ6.99, ISBN 1 85723 362 X), a story set in the near
future. David Dai arrives in the underwater colony Caribe, to work as a
security
guard for banker Mayla Ling. Europe is still above ground in these strange days
and the oppression of the underwater world is hard to bear. Terrorists and the
Caribe Mafia enter the picture, and David flees after a bomb destroys Mayla’s
home. Loose in the depths of the city, filled with VR advertising and
struggling
to breathe in dirty air, David passes his time playing virtual wargames.
Meanwhile, security forces suspect him of complicity in the bombing.

The story is well told and the characters interesting and believable, but
best of all, McHugh introduces us to her future world a piece at a time.
Because
of this, the story moves gracefully and the reader is much more involved in the
tale than if the construct had been presented all at once.

In An Exaltation of Larks (Tor, $21.95, ISBN 0 312 85888 4)
by Robert Reed, the difference in worlds is not a contrast between now and
then,
but between here and there. A college student, Jesse Aylesworth, wakes one
morning to find his world changing. He feels no hunger, he stops needing to
urinate. A turtle disappears from the biology lab, and reappears to Jesse in the
form of an old Indian Chief. The Turtle claims he is from the end of the
Universe, returning to take a few vertebrates into a new kind of living. The
writing is beautiful and the changing world unfolds gradually and gracefully.
Time seems much more tangible and travel across or through it perhaps more
possible than you imagined.

Harry Stein’s The Magic Bullet (Bantam, £4.99, lSBN 0 553 40843 7) attacks that popular mysterious illness, cancer. Young, handsome, single Dr Daniel Logan, recipient of a prestigious fellowship at the (fictitious) American Cancer Federation, stumbles across a “magic” cure for cancer, aided by brilliant, beautiful, Italian Dr Sabrina Como. They research and toil. Meanwhile, back at the ACF, personalities clash. Is there a cover-up? Is there a conspiracy? Take a guess. A good book for those relaxing at Christmas – with the bonus of learning about cancer trials and treatments.

For a more innovative medical thriller, try Stanley Pottinger’s The Fourth Procedure (Coronet, £5.99, ISBN 0 340 65754 5) or F. Paul Wilson’s Implant (Forge, $23.95, ISBN 0 312 89034 6). Implant offers a plastic surgeon with personal grudges, a Congressional medical ethics committee and a heroine who works with both. The surgeon, Duncan Lathram, has developed a technique to reduce post-surgical scarring, implanting a time-release capsule in an incision before stitching it up. The intrigue comes when some of Lathram’s former patients, all politicians, die. It is a nicely developed book except for a tendency on Wilson’s part to give the game away. But there is a pleasing twist and, if the surgery doesn’t bother your stomach, the politics will.

Politics is also the name of the game in Pottinger’s novel, The Fourth Procedure, but this time it is abortion politics. Players include a senator, a top lawyer, an award-winning transplant surgeon, a Supreme Court nominee and the head of a large pro-life campaign, creating a maze based on the politics surrounding abortion. A body is discovered, pre-autopsied by the killer, who has removed the liver and inserted a child’s doll and a cryptic message into the body cavity. As disgust factors go, the body cannot hold a candle to the pro-life movement as represented here.

Autopsies abound in From Potter’s Field (Little, Brown, £15.99, ISBN 0 316 91414 2), Patricia Cornwell’s latest instalment of the Kay Scarpetta story. Readers new to Cornwell will be impressed by her wonderful plot and interesting characters. Those who have read the previous five Scarpettas may find this a slowstarter but, by the middle, it is impossible to put down. An early murder suggests that a killer from a previous novel is back. He is after our heroine and anyone else he can take down on the way. As always, Cornwell’s knowledge of medical examining practices is used efficiently and smoothly.

Cornwell’s writing far outstrips most others in this genre. If I was disappointed that it took until the middle for this novel to grip me, From Potters Field is still so far ahead of most of the competition that it hardly mattered.

While most medical and scientific thrillers are not for the weak of stomach, few can affect the truly die-hard reader. So what a morbid joy it is to find a novel that can turn us green. Watch Me by A. J. Holt (St Martin’s Press/Hodder & Stoughton, $22.95/£16.99, ISBN 0 312 13614 5) is a foray into serial killing that pulls absolutely no punches. It even uses the Internet/World Wide Web in an interesting way – hard to do without alienating much of the general public.

The heroine, Jay Fletcher, is an FBI agent with unorthodox tendencies, and a talented hacker. As a reprimand for using not-strictly-legal means to catch a killer, she is sent off to the sticks to set up a computer system to catch repeat arsonists. There she stumbles into a virtual murder game on the Web, populated by real killers. Can she find out who they are? Not, of course, by strictly legal means, so off she heads for a spot of vigilantism with the FBI and the head killer close behind. This not only provides fascinating reading, but also provokes serious questions about the efficiency of law and the nature of justice. This book is gripping from start to finish – don’t pick it up unless you have time to read it all the way through.

Stanton’s account touches on all aspects of the river: its history and
geology, life on its shores, and its conservation – enriched with his own
experiences, excerpted from a lifetime of journals that describe more than
14 600 kilometres of travel on the river and its tributaries. To know the
Potomac, he claims, you must drink it, swim in it, tremble as lightning
strikes it, feel its icy cold, fight against its currents, and all but drown
in it. For those who lack the means (or courage) for such an in-depth
exploration, Stanton’s book provides an excellent substitute.