“Sleepless”

“Sleepless”

By Charlie Huston

Ballantine Books, 368 pages, $25

“Sleepless,” the new novel from the writer of the moment, Charlie Huston, kept us up all night through 275 pages.

A flawed fifth act, though, cuts down what might have been the most satisfying achievement in Huston’s dizzying ascent from unknown to one of the most interesting writers working the crime/mystery/supernatural beat.

Still, Huston has woven a serious novel full of ideas about our future, concerns about our present and dead-on characterizations.

Parker Haas is a novelty in the near-future world Huston has created. The young LAPD detective is a man of conviction in a time when it’s everyone for himself.

The world is unraveling thanks to a new progressive disease that has rendered 10 percent of the population unable to sleep. And the number is growing. At the same time, the U.S. is hit with droughts, domestic terrorism and widespread panic.

In the Henry Thompson Trilogy and the Joe Pitt Casebooks, Huston showed he can spin an adept thriller. With his most recent books, the author shows us that he’s willing to stretch and reach for something with more meaning.

Let’s hope there’s more on the way.

Chris Talbott, Associated Press

“The Swan Thieves”

By Elizabeth Kostova

Little, Brown and Co., 576 pages, $26.99

Renowned painter Robert Oliver pulls a knife and attacks a painting in the impressionist collection at the National Gallery of Art. He tells psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, “I did it for her,” and then falls silent for nearly a year.

Perplexed — and frustrated — by his patient’s silence, Marlow contacts Oliver’s wife, mistress and colleagues in a search for the woman who drove him to try to destroy the art he loves. Marlow’s search uncovers blackmail, fraud and a mystery answered in the work of French impressionists.

Elizabeth Kostova made a splash in modern literature with “The Historian,” her best-selling debut novel about Dracula. “The Swan Thieves,” her much-anticipated second novel, wanders into Dan Brown territory, but lacks the body count found in “The Da Vinci Code.”

Instead, she offers an understated, beautifully written tale of art, love and an obsession triggered by both. “The Swan Thieves” also shows the same meticulous historical research and scene-setting description that elevated “The Historian” from a vampire tale to a work of art.

“The Swan Thieves” has two parallel plots, one focusing on Marlow and Oliver and the other on Beatrice de Clerval, a gifted painter in 19th-century Paris. The story lines are connected by a mystery in which clues are hidden in works of art.

M.L. Johnson, Associated Press

“Silencer”

By James W. Hall

Minotaur Books, 276 pages, $24.99

After 10 books, fans of James W. Hall’s series featuring an amateur detective named Thorn have grown accustomed to seeing the reclusive roughneck come charging to the rescue. So it’s startling, in book 11, to find him spending most his time held prisoner in an underground pit while his friends try to figure out where he is.

Thorn recently inherited millions from a distant relative but he can’t wait to rid himself of the money, so he puts his girlfriend Rusty Stabler in charge of figuring out how. Sharing Thorn’s love for what’s left of Florida’s natural landscape, she cooks up a complicated real estate deal to preserve 300 square miles. But some bad people have other plans for the land.

In quick succession, 87-year-old Earl Hammond, a key player in the land deal, is murdered, Thorn is kidnapped and thrown in the pit, and his friends, Stabler and Sugarman, begin their desperate search for him.

Hall, who is not only a fine crime novelist but also an excellent poet, retired recently from his job as a college literature professor. What Hall has done in “Silencer” would be a big gamble for a lesser talent — it’s generally not a good idea to keep your hero immobilized for most of the book. Yet Hall, who excels at character development, has created a passel of fascinating good and bad guys to drive the action.

Bruce DeSilva, Associated Press

“The First Rule”

By Robert Crais

Putnam, 308 pages, $26.95

The problem with Pike is he’s perfect. When Joe Pike was private detective Elvis Cole’s sometimes sidekick and always silent partner, there was an air of mystery about him that left Robert Crais’ many fans aching for more.

Now that Crais has started Pike’s own occasional series, the mystery has faded and we pretty much know what we’re going to get when Pike steps onto the page — perfection. There’s no question he’s going to outsmart the cops and the crooks and achieve his goal. It’s Pike, after all, the former soldier, mercenary and cop who has played zenlike straight man to Cole’s clown for 16 years.

In “The First Rule,” the second installment in the Pike series following 2007’s “The Watchman,” Pike’s old buddy Frank “The Tank” Meyer has been brutally murdered along with his family in a home invasion that doesn’t appear to be about robbery. The cops and equally lost federal authorities are stumped. Not Pike. Within a few dozen pages, he’s following his own thread on the path to cold vengeance.

“The First Rule” is the kind of book that fans will devour like sweet, sweet candy. New readers should turn their attention to his earlier works featuring Cole and Pike for an introduction to the wisecracking PI and his taciturn pal.

Chris Talbott, Associated Press