'The Lizard King'
By Bryan Christy (Twelve, $24.99)
In "The Lizard King," his book about the wild world of reptile-dealing chicanery, Bryan Christy describes a smuggling incident at Miami International Airport. An Argentine man who claimed to be carrying a suitcase full of ceramics turned out to have crammed all this into his single piece of luggage: 107 chaco tortoises, 103 red-footed tortoises, 76 tartaruga turtles, five boa constrictors, seven rainbow boas, seven parrot snakes, 20 tarantulas, 10 scorpions, 90 tree frogs, 20 red tegu lizards, about a dozen other lizards and two South American rattlesnakes. It was one wiggling, squiggling, brilliantly packed load of trouble.
The man got a 15-month prison sentence. But that was negligible, given the vast criminal enterprise that Christy's book describes.
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There are reptile suppliers whose businesses devour 1 million mealworms, 50,000 crickets and 10,000 frozen rodents a week. And these breeders supply pet shops with an entirely above-board inventory of snakes, lizards and tortoises, critters that are "the only reptiles many Americans will ever see." Christy's entertaining book is about the crooks, swashbucklers and drug kingpins who constitute the underbelly of the reptile-dealing world.
At the risk of oversimplifying its story, this book insists on a Hollywood dynamic. Though "The Lizard King" involves a great many characters united only by their ability to connect rare animal specimens with dollar signs, Christy tries to arrange it around two central figures: Mike Van Nostrand, the reptile dealer of the title, and Special Agent Chip Bepler, the dogged official from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who turned the stalking of Van Nostrand into his safari of choice.
— The New York Times
'Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door'
By David Kaufman (Virgin, $29.95)
Steve Carell doesn't have a copyright on playing the 40-year-old virgin. That's a role Doris Day, at age 40, was still playing on-screen when she made "That Touch of Mink" with Cary Grant in 1962. In that sex farce, Day was the unsullied working-class Cinderella wooed by the suave Grant, whose eyes were always pointed toward the nearest bedroom. Day was having none of it until the fadeout, by which time she had a wedding ring neatly placed on her left hand.
Perhaps because of such feathery confections that played up Day's pure-as-Ivory-soap screen persona, she was rarely taken seriously as an actress and, to a lesser extent, as a vocalist. Day finally gets her due on both counts in "Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door," David Kaufman's compelling new biography from, ironically, Virgin Books.
The title is something of a misnomer, since Day already bared her soul and mussed up her goody-two-shoes image in a candid 1975 autobiography, "Doris Day: My Own Story," done with A.E. Hotchner. Kaufman naturally covers much of the same material: The distant father whose love she craved but never received; the near-fatal car crash at age 14 that shattered her dreams of being a dancer; her recovery and ultimate path toward singing; and her disastrous marriages. Que sera, sera.
But this isn't just a retread of Day's unsentimental journey. Kaufman, a theater critic and author of "The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam," worked on Day's bio for eight years and has tracked down sources who knew her from childhood as well as recent acquaintances such as Sydney Wood, a fan who eventually worked in Day's household.
— McClatchy-Tribune
'Fearless'
By Diana Palmer (HQN, $24.95)
Warning: Don't read this book without a box of tissues nearby.
Of course Diana Palmer fans don't have to be warned.
"Fearless" is another book with ties to Jacobsville, where the rugged hero is set to foil the bad guys but isn't able to thwart love and the heroine draws the readers' complete support and sympathy.
Rodrigo was the "loser" in love in "Outsider," when Sarina and Colby reunited and found their happily-ever-after. What readers didn't fully realize in that book was how devastated Rodrigo was when his DEA partner, Sarina, pursued her bliss with Colby.
Glory is a typical Palmer heroine, a damsel in distress type who has hidden depths and is stronger than she appears. An abusive mother left Glory crippled, but loving — and rich — step siblings came to her rescue. Despite a genetic heart condition, Glory has emerged as a tough assistant district attorney who is forced into hiding when a nasty drug lord she's prosecuting threatens her life.
She hides at her step-siblings' farm in Jacobs-ville — where Rodrigo is working undercover trying to capture the same drug lord.
So their courtship begins cloaked in lies, with neither able to reveal their true identities. Rodrigo decides to marry Glory, but immediately regrets the hasty decision. He treats Glory horribly and says hurtful things to her that will have you grabbing for those tissues.
Of course, that's Palmer's trademark and the appeal of her books: The hero unwittingly hurts the heroine, then feels totally guilty about it and seeks to make amends.
— McClatchy-Tribune
The Tucson Festival Books will feature dozens of mystery writers, including Jacqueline Winspear, author of the "Maisie Dobbs" series. Just added to the festival are Jim Borgman and Jerry Scott, best know for their comic strip "Zits,'' which appears on the Star's comics page. To see the more than 325 authors who will appear for free March 14-15 on the University of Arizona campus, as well as more book news, reviews and events, go online to tucsonfestivalofbooks.org.
