The Paperbackers

“An ancient Biblical curse,a tribe of French pariahs,and a terrible revelation”,goes the blurb of the marks of Cain (HarperCollins,Rs 525). No,Dan Brown isn’t back with a new chain-bookstore swarmer; it’s another author with a name composed of staccato monosyllables: Tom Knox. The resemblance doesn’t end there. His novel also centres around “mankind’s darkest secret”. It begins when David,a London-based “lethargic,incoherently sad media lawyer” travels to his ailing grandfather’s side somewhere in the Arizona desert. “Fly to Bilbao. Find Jose Garovillo,” says the grandfather,in his cinematically wheezy,cryptic deathbed declaration. “Show him… the map….” David is left with a mysterious $2 million,and a mystery to solve. So he junks his job and jets it to Spain on the trail of the mystery,where he meets a mysterious girl,Amy,and starts to get trailed himself by a sanguinary ex-Basque separatist with a fondness for medieval forms of torture,such as “knotting” one’s victim’s scalp off with a stick. And,wouldn’t you know it,knee-deep in the slush of forensic-porn — spattered cranial fluids,shredded faces,“fibrous amputated arms”,“yoghurty flaps of flesh” and “grave wax”,David somehow finally feels alive.

Nothing makes Young Adults feel more alive than a good dose of capers involving the undead. Or the unnatural. Bartimaeus: The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud (Random House,Rs 550),a prequel to Stroud’s bestselling trilogy,has plenty of these,as you can tell from the large prefatory “Note on Magic” detailing the finer points of difference between shape-shifting djinni,imposing afrits,impertinent imps and wily foliots,and the perils that might befall magicians who summon each of these spirit slaves from “the Other Place”. Like the demon Bartimaeus,who is stuck with the dull,deadbeat job of guarding the Ring of Absolute Power for King Solomon in Jerusalem sometime in 950 BC. Bored,his only amusement entails finding out all the “forbidden activities” in the palace,including “fighting,devouring servants,running in the corridors,cursing,drawing rude stick figures on the harem walls,causing unpleasant smells to permeate the kitchens,and spitting on the upholstery”. Until Asmira,a young assassin girl,shows up with plans of killing the King and making off with the Ring.

Jealousy by Lili St. Crow (Quercus,Rs 250) cannily opts for the undead creatures that are currently melting tween hearts everywhere: vampires. Like Twilight’s,this one’s heroine also appears likely to figure in a paranormal love triangle,involving a “loup garou” and a rakishly coiffed bloodsucker. But Dru Anderson is a vampire hunter,which makes her less Bella,more budget Buffy — without the wit or the entertainment. Vampire fiction purists may also not appreciate the Gothic-era romance aura being replaced by inglorious contemporary references: like banana latte and the consequences of ingesting large quantities of it: “the Grand Canyon echo of a severely abused bladder”. Even for tween vampire fiction,this sucks.