The Book of Lies

July 28, 2008
Bestseller Meltzer (The Book of Fate
) deserves credit for an audacious conceit—wedding the biblical fratricide of Abel by his brother Cain with the unsolved 1932 homicide of the father of Jerry Siegel, the creator of iconic comic book hero Superman—but the results are less than convincing. A highly tenuous link between the two murders revolves around the mysterious weapon Cain (“the world's greatest villain”) used to kill his brother. One of numerous theories is that the weapon was a divine book containing the secrets of immortality. After coming to the aid of a shooting victim, Calvin Harper, a homeless volunteer working in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., soon finds himself hopelessly caught up in a life-and-death quest for the ancient artifact that includes the obligatory secret societies, Nazi conspiracies, enigmatic villains and cryptographic riddles à la The Da Vinci Code
. A glut of two-dimensional characters and a plot riddled with coincidences don't help.

October 27, 2008
When a homeless man with a gunshot wound is revealed to be Calvin Harper’s long-lost father, Cal must scramble his resources while dealing with a watershed of emotions. Father and son are drawn into a mystery involving the recovery of the supposed murder weapon Cain used in the Bible. Hints eventually lead them to seek out the remnants of Superman creator Jerry Siegel and solve the mystery behind the death of Siegel’s father. Meltzer executes another spellbinding tale that continually keeps readers guessing, along with a good mix of biblical and comic book lore. Scott Brick works the diverse range of character voices well and remains masterful at drawing out the text. His pauses, hesitations and voice breaks provide an added level of suspense. The musical interludes at stressful parts of the story or chapters endings are superfluous given Brick’s performance. Nearly a dozen illustrations relevant to the story line are provided as bonus material on the last CD. A Grand Central hardcover (Reviews, July 28).

March 16, 2009
Former South African Member of Parliament Feinstein delivers a damning portrait of the African National Congress in this lacerating political memoir. The author, who won a seat in the provincial legislature in South Africa's first democratic elections, affectionately recounts the tenure of Nelson Mandela as president, reserving his criticism for Mandela's successor, Thabo Mbeki, whom he excoriates repeatedly—and sometimes repetitiously—for his denial of the country's AIDS crisis and failure to exert political pressure on Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe. The book's central narrative hinges on an investigation into an arms deal that revealed the depth of corruption in the Mbeki-led ANC. The text follows the investigation and the changing fortunes of the ANC through Mbeki's resignation in September of 2008, concluding at a moment of uncertainty for the country and the party. The author occasionally digresses from his compelling history of South African politics to reflect on his own Jewish-African identity and his philosophical approach to government—influenced by the writings of Vaclav Havel. Charged with passionate conviction, this book is a deeply personal but far-reaching insider's account of a political party losing its way.