THE paperbackers

A fortnightly look at the brisk sellers and the quick reads. A long journey out of Siberian camps and geeks hunting down a serial killer

One of the most anticipated books this year has been Estonian writer Sofi Oksanens third novel Purge Penguin,

Rs 299. Aliide Truu is an old woman who lives alone in the Estonian countryside and time has stopped still in her cottage since her countrys liberation from the Soviet rule. Everybody rushes to Tallinn,nobody comes to visit,which is why she is suspicious when she finds a raggedy young woman in the garden in front of her cottage. Zara is on the run from her Russian captors who sold her into the slave trade,but has secretly been seeking Aliide for some time now. The translation by Lola Rogers is smooth and Oksanen has a gripping story to tell: from Aliides pre-Soviet Estonian girlhood in the 1930s to Stalinist deportations,from Siberian camps in the 1940s to,finally,Zaras desperate existence as Natasha,a porn film actress. Not a quick read but compelling enough.

Christos Tsiolkas The Slap Penguin,Rs 450 is based in Melbourne,Australia. The book begins with Hector,middle-aged husband,father of two,adulterer,and his Indian wife Aisha preparing for a barbecue at their house. Friends and relatives come pouring in and during a cricket match that goes out of hand,Hectors cousin Harry slaps Aishas friends child. Mayhem erupts,the aggrieved parents take the matter of child abuse to court,and each of the eight adults who were present that day are generously given separate chapters to discuss the minute details of their lives,their hopes and fears,their hatred and intolerance for each other. The underlying themes of the book range from racial and ethnic tension to adultery,alcoholism,parenting,family,homosexuality,and relationships. But what could have been a neat,taut story has been stretched into a novel and that is what stings the most.

P.J. Tracy is the pseudonym for a mother-daughter writing team,Patricia and Traci Lambrecht. They are the bestselling authors of Want to Play? and Snow Blind. While they managed to stir up some interest with their previous books,with their latest offering, Play To Kill Penguin,Rs 499,they have run out of ideas and lost their fans. When a serial killer starts to post murder videos online,computer analyst Grace MacBride and her motley crew of nerds and geeks are recruited by the FBI to hunt down the killer. Apart from the fact that this sort of plot makes for better viewing than reading,Play to Kill has a weak narrative,one-dimensional characters and an unbelievable ending. But if you have a really long flight/train ride and want to leave your brain behind,this should work well.