In this seventh installment of Kinsey Millhone's adventures as a private detective, Kinsey has much more on her plate than usual. She is hired to locate a client's elderly mother, who has disappeared; she also discovers that someone is trying to have her killed. The first challenge develops in unexpected ways, and the search for Kinsey's would-be killer is a well-integrated secondary plot. The whole thing is bound up in Grafton's usual competent, easy-to-read writing.

The book's only shortcoming is that it could have been much more than it was. It is essentially two stories coincident in time and both involving Kinsey; no thematic connection between them is evident. While this does not detract from the novel's enjoyability, it leaves some doubt as to why Grafton introduced a second story element rather than elaborating a bit more on the first.

"Le Mariage" is the tale of a wedding, a marriage, and an international crime. Clara, a beauty and erstwhile actress, is not-very-happily married to Serge, a famous filmaker. Anne-Sophie, a flea market dealer, is about to be married to Tim, an American journalist. The two couples are brought together by Delia and Gabriel, American antiquers and millenial cultists who happen on the scene of a murder. A large cast of minor characters - Anne-Sophie's mother, the wedding coordinator, a mayor, Serge's neighbor - tumble in and out of the story, which, at its best, is an energetic interweaving of several unusual plotlines.

Unfortunately, the story is not always at its best. The narrative begins in an abrupt manner, switching points of view rapidly and not focusing on characters long enough to allow the reader to become accustomed to them in the crucial first third of the book. The latter pages are much easier to read; however, the narration is often grating, with its heavy-handed suggestions about the American expatriate community in France and the differences between American and French culture. The other apparent theme of the book - the discrepancy in perception and priorities between men and women - is explored with an equal lack of subtlety, and while the characters are animated and entertaining they are also rigidly stereotyped. Finally, the book's ending is abrupt and overdramatized, closing the action without resolving any of the complications introduced in the exposition.

There is much that is good in "Le Mariage": lively writing, well-drawn characters, intricate and offbeat plot. It inhabits a world unfamiliar to most potential readers, and this adds to its charm. But the story seems to escape its author, who seems capable of only the coarsest commentary on the delicate characters and situations she has created. The story is enjoyable for much of its length, and not an unworthwhile read, but the ending is flat and disappointing, leaving readers with the promise of a great story that was never fulfilled.

"The Nanny Diaries" is the novelization of two former nannies' worst experiences in the trenches of childcare-for-the-hideously-rich. The book chronicles its protagonist's trials and tribulations during the year she works for a particularly unreasonable family: her relationship with the child's mother deteriorates as the child becomes increasingly dependent on her and his father engages in a series of affairs and prolonged absences.

This book is a terrific read. It's hilarious and continuously interesting (enough so to read in one sitting). It has moments of inconsistency, and there are a few off-color elements (some readers may be annoyed that the protagonist's name is Nanny and her employers' last name is X). But the sheer enjoyability of the story, and its grounded take on the lifestyles of the sickeningly wealthy, more than make up for its few failings.

The Sweet Potato Queens, for anyone who hasn't yet heard of them, are a group of fading Southern belles who've annointed themselves Queens of their small circle of admirers. In this book, their leader espouses the Queens' views on (primarily) Queendom, gender relations, and food.

"The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love" is entertaining and a quick read. However, its attitude of postfeminist dominance is grating: the Queens espouse - seriously or not - the belief that they, as women, are the intellectual equal of any man, but are still entitled to the deference accorded to women by less enlightened schools of thought. Their demands for homage grow tiresome, even from the point of view of a feminist, and by the end of the book the author's message ("worship me! worship me!") has grown stale. This is strictly a Friday-night read, and not an excellent one at that.

"The Eight" is Katherine Neville's amazing first novel, the story of two women - one in the 1970's, the other in the 1790's - embarking on parallel journeys that will change the course of history. It is nearly everything a book can be, offering adventure, drama, mystery, and romance under a single cover.

"The Eight" is a work of philosophy and fantasy and history. It explores the realms of chess, computers, mathematics and music and their intersections. It moves nimbly among various eras and settings, weaving everything together in a story that is compelling and memorable. Although the book is long, the story moves quickly and the length rarely seems onerous. Best of all - and impressive in a book of such intensity - "The Eight" offers plenty of insight into its subject matter, dispensing profound or unusual thoughts at every turn.

It is hard to overstate the power and beauty of "The Eight," how luxuriously it reads, how thoroughly it weaves its themes, how deeply it touches one's mind. I read it once about ten years ago (as a teenager) and again just now; although the plot was familiar and I could anticipate more of its twists the second time around, it was still every inch a worthwhile and thought-provoking read.

More lighthearted and less polished than Austen's other novels, "Northanger Abbey" is the chronicle of its heroine's adventures in turn-of-the-nineteenth-century British genteel society. Catherine, of marriageable age and reasonably attractive and well bred, goes on holiday to Bath, where she meets the gentlemanly Mr. Tilney and befriends the fickle Isabelle and her callow brother John. Her adventures in Bath and, later, in the home of her new acquaintances comprise the plot of Austen's mocking tale.

As usual, Austen is mocking the meeting-and-mating customs of then-contemporary Britain. But she is also mocking the gothic novels of the day: Catherine, influenced by the lowbrow literature she reads, is forever attributing dark motives to her acquaintances and skeletons to their closets. "Northanger Abbey" is unusual among Austen's works in that it attacks not only the society in which its heroine operates, but the heroine herself. Catherine is easily manipulated and slow to learn from her mistakes, and she bumbles into her eventual happy ending completely by accident, none the wiser for her troubles. And Austen makes clear, at the book's opening, that she does not wish to attack the novelists who write the books from which Catherine derives many of her false ideas: the error is Catherine's misapplication of the stories' lessons.

Although it was not published until after its author's death, "Northanger Abbey" is clearly a first novel. Its tone is different from the main body of Austen's work, and its quality is lower. While a pleasant read, the book is not particularly compelling and would probably be most enjoyable for Austen aficionados seeking a comprehensive study of her work.

"F is for Fugitive" is one of the better Kinsey mysteries: engrossing from the first chapter, it reads quickly and consistently. Although the book is 300 pages long - longer than most of Grafton's novels - there is no mid-story lull. It bypasses much of Kinsey's usual backdrop: the action takes place in a small town ninety miles away from Santa Teresa, so Henry Pitts, Rosie, the California Fidelity crew, and Kinsey's bachelorette life in her small apartment are peripheral or entirely absent from the story. The book focuses entirely on the mystery of an twenty-year-old murder in a small town and a cast of characters who all seem to have something to hide. It's quintessential Sue Grafton: suspenseful and well-written, a pleasure to read from beginning to end.

"Lucky" is Alice Sebold's memoir of her psychosexual development, centering on her rape as a college freshman. Intelligent and keenly observed, it recounts the rape itself, the rapist's trial, and the aftermath during the remaining years of Sebold's college career; it also delves into Sebold's childhood and her adult attempts to heal.

There is much that is good about this book. Like its teller, the story is smart and strong. The voice is wry and sympathetic. Sebold's extensive recounting of the long-term aftereffects of the rape is valuable, since all too often a victim's trauma is seen as ending after several months or a year.

But "Lucky" is not, ultimately, a really good book. Something is missing, an emotional connection between the narrator and the reader, or the narrator and the other characters, that is not made. The ending seems not to resonate. Perhaps this is because, in writing her story as a memoir, Sebold has chosen a form that does not allow for evolution in the narrator or for extensive authorial knowledge of the other characters. Ultimately, she is unable to rise out of this form: "Lucky" is the skilled telling of a story, nothing less and nothing more.

The irrepressible Bridget Jones continues her diary for another year with this sequel to "Bridget Jones' Diary", and the hilarity of her adventures is undiminished. Written in the highly comic trademark Bridget style, the new diary recounts Bridget's adventures in her relationship with Mark Darcy, her attempts to have her flat renovated, and her observations of her mother's shenanigans. Although "The Edge of Reason" is necessarily less original than, well, the original (and is clearly not going to spawn an entire subgenre of popular literature the way "Bridget Jones' Diary" did) it's still an excellent read; Fielding is a better inventor of plot, and surely a better stylist, than most of her imitators.

The conflict between the classic and the contemporary has long raged among literati; rarely is it resolved so eloquently as in "The Calligrapher", which combines the love poems of John Donne with Docx's modern characters and plot. Jasper, a present-day British calligrapher and womanizer, is transcribing Donne's poems for a client. His adventures with the women in his life, particularly his love affair with the beautiful and devastatingly casual Madeleine, parallel his work on the poems.

Docx writes an absorbing plot, and the interplay between the narrative and the poems is well-constructed. However, the most enjoyable component of the books is Jasper's thoughts on love, poetry, calligraphy, and contemporary society. "The Calligrapher" is an intensely modern book: clearly turn-of-the-21st-century, post-9/11, post-Fight-Club. Docx is not afraid to tie his book to a particular cultural locale (in time, place, and class), and his references work marvelously well, making the book feel sassy, immediate, and shockingly intelligent.