In much the same way as an M. Night Shyamalan movie, you know not everything is as it appears. At some point in time the rug will be jerked out from under you and you'll find yourself seeing things from a whole new perspective. In the past, Deaver has been able to keep us guessing throughout the entire story. This newest novel, however, seems to fall flat in several places. In other books like The Vanished Man or The Empty Chair, the reader learns to care about the "victims" of whatever the crime in the book may be. We feel for them, and want them to live and succeed in doing whatever it is they want to. In The Twelfth Card, we don't see the three-dimensional characters we're used to. Geneva Settle, a 16 year old student, is attacked while in a library researching one of her ancestors involved in a crime 140 years ago. She escapes, and eventually Rhyme is brought in to look at the attack. As Rhyme and Sachs try to protect Settle and discover the identity of her attacker, Rhyme realizes the answer may lie in the crime Settle's relative was involved in, and that the only way to save Settle is to find the resolution to it.

As in any Deaver novel, the plot twists come left and right. This time, however, they don't always seem to flow like they usually do. Settle is pursued by her original attacker, and soon another stranger is after her too. Why are so many people out to get the same teenager? More importantly, why would the police bring in someone like Lincoln Rhyme to help her? After all, Rhyme is considered an important man to the NYPD, and Settle's crime is considered nothing more than an assault attempt for a long time. Why not give the case to someone else? A minor thing, I know, but just one of the things you'll find yourself considering as you read this book.

But it's not all bad. Deaver can always be counted on to deliver a good story, and he still does here. He even manages to give us the slightest ray of sunshine for Rhyme in the midst of his horrible condition. And the inclusion of a major character from The Vanished Man and Parker Kincaid from The Devil's Teardrop add a lot to the story. Kincaid is a fascinating character, and it's a shame he's been dropped back to cameo appearances in Rhyme's novels now.

The Twelfth Card isn't Deaver's best novel, but it's not his worst either. After great a string of great novels, any author is allowed a slow one. Even with its faults, this is still Jeffery Deaver and you'll still find this one an easy read, and worth the time it takes to finish it.

We turn them into idols.

Dark Star: Confessions of a Rock Idol examines the turbulent life and times of Everett Lester, lead singer and master of mayhem of the popular rock group DeathStroke. Though fictional, the story is told as a memoir of sorts from Lester's perspective, chronicling his childhood in an abusive family to his band's rise to the top of the rock 'n' roll world, to his bottoming out in his thirties while on tour with the band. In this tale, we are reminded of just how human our so-called "idols" and "superstars" are.

Lester is a man of the world, consumed by all the things fame and popularity bring him. He loves making it with women, scoring drugs in every city they tour in, drinking himself into a stupor and otherwise forgetting half of what he says or does on stage. And while the other members of the band indulge in similar activities and are lifelong friends of his, he feels alone and searches for validation in his life. Happiness eludes him no matter what he does.

Enter Endora Crystal, renowned Los Angeles-based psychic to the stars. On a whim he decides to have a reading with her and is blown away by what she knows about his past. He subsequently pays to take her on the road with DeathStroke and to be his personal psychic. As the years pass, she becomes his confidant: closer than his family or band mates.

But then a woman from Kansas who is not even a fan of DeathStroke begins sending him letters telling him that she is praying for him, that God loves him and that he is worth more than he can imagine. The letters come occasionally but consistently over the years, and while it is nearly a decade before he first meets her, he gradually becomes intrigued with this woman despite his anti-God philosophy and lyrics. Why on Earth would someone like her take an interest in his life rather than condemn him, as he would expect her to?

Dark Star alternates between recounting Lester's rock 'n' roll days and updating us on his present situation: residing in a prison cell as he stands trial for the murder of Endora Crystal. The classic "trial-of-the-century" motif helps explain the events of each day in court, and we learn about the friends and enemies he has made on the inside as a result of his fame. Karen, her family and some prison guards pray for his acquittal, while a fellow inmate promises that Lester will suffer - as well as others who are close to him - if he is found innocent.

In this debut novel, author Creston Mapes writes in a conversational tone that makes the book feel interactive, rather than like a stuffy lecture or a bloated autobiography, so this is another major plus. The story-within-a-story feel creates an interesting framework for the novel, and some of the names he drops make you stop and wonder for a moment if this is real or not.

Mapes does a good job of demonstrating how Lester's life has spun completely out of control by the time Endora is murdered. He has let her become so important in his life that she controls his actions, his thoughts, even the lyrics he writes. He is miserable and tries to believe there is a purpose to his life, but he doesn't have the will to change, being too entrenched in the destructive life he is living.

One of the primary themes in this novel is the fight for redemption, to believe that a person's life has value, and this novel, while exciting, also begs questions of us: would we reach out to a stranger as blindly and confidently as Karen does for so many years? Would we be able to forgive him for the life-threatening injuries he gives a girl at a concert? If we were in his position and careening towards an early death, would we have anyone to turn to - and if so, who would they be and why would we choose them?

Dark Star is a gripping page-turner of a debut. It's one of those books you find yourself trying to make time for and lamenting when you are not able to, as much for the quick pacing as for the lessons we can learn from the events that take place. This is a great first novel that is well worth your time.

It's quite a bold claim to make since the received wisdom says that these technologies are good only for turning one's mind to mush, or maybe for teaching children how to be violent or have short attention spans. But little has been done to look at the positive aspects (if there are any) of these technologies. And looking at the positive is exactly what Johnson does.

Johnson begins by noticing that IQ scores have been on the increase for most of the 20th century. What, he asks, is the cause for a wholesale increase in the cognitive abilities of the population? Having looked over a large body of neuroscience and psychology papers, Johnson discovered that the very things that improve cognitive intelligence were the very things that video games and modern television were providing, namely the ability to manage complex data structures in what Johnson calls 'telescoping' (the ability to focus on details while keeping the big picture in mind), as well as narrative sophistication that can be found in such innovative new shows as The Sopranos, West Wing, and 24.

The premise that these technologies have positive and socially desirable benefits is indeed a radical one, and one need go no further than Johnson's title to see that he recognizes this. Johnson also affirms this with the name he gives this effect: the Sleeper Curve, named after a humorous moment in Woody Allen's movie The Sleepers where people from the future wonder how modern man couldn't see the benefits of fudge sundaes. Johnson's Sleeper Curve traces the exact same effect: things once considered purely decadent and a waste of time actually help in unexpected ways.

Johnson's thesis needs to be taken with a grain of salt, however, and he even provides us with that salt: a diet exclusively of video games, TV, and the Internet will not lead to budding geniuses, just as a diet of nothing but the classics of Western literature will not lead one to be the next Einstein. There should be moderation and balance in the way we structure our lives, but that balance cannot be achieved if we exclude, a priori, technologies that reinforce and support cognitive intelligences.

One other problem, though, Johnson doesn't address, and that is that the Flynn effect (the increase of IQ scores over time) began long before the technologies under discussion were invented. This creates a larger problem in that a causal effect cannot be established when the result happens before the cause even exists.

One final point needs to be made about Johnson's argument: he purposefully does not discuss the excessive violence or sexuality that many find in these emerging technologies. His argument for the Sleeper Curve has nothing to do with the moralities that are being put forth in some instances in these new technologies and so he does not address those issues. He does admit that these are issues that need to be addressed but that discourse so far has been inadequate. It is his hope that the idea of the Sleeper Curve will help bring the benefits of these technologies to the table for discussion so that reasoned and balanced discussions can occur.

Enter Steve Alten.

With The Loch, Alten has written possibly the best thriller based around Loch Ness ever. His grasp of the culture, the people, and the countryside surrounding the Loch is detailed and captivating. You will truly feel like you're there as you read this story.

The story begins as marine biologist Zachary Wallace was raised on the Loch and at age nine almost drowned there. Now an adult, he's forced the memories of that terrifying night so far away he can hardly remember what truly happened. A research accident in a submersible almost costs him his life and brings back snippets of those lost memories. Was the creature in the Loch somehow involved in his accident?

When his estranged father Angus is accused of murder, Zachary must return to the Loch to face old friends and older fears. As the trial progresses, Zachary realizes the real reason he has been summoned to the Loch: to prove the existence of a monster in its waters.

Taking real modern-day research and coupling it with eyewitness accounts over the years, Alten gives the first plausible explanation as to what could truly be out there in years. Skipping the dinosaur theory altogether (and actually debunking it in part), Alten chooses an alternate route to prove how something could actually be down there that matches most of the eyewitness testimony. The best part is that he tells a terrifying story in the process.

As he did with Meg and its sequels, Alten turns the dark, murky waters into a sinister death machine, hiding a predator more horrible than even the giant sharks of his previous novels. He has hit his stride perfectly here in tightening the tension a little at a time until you feel like everything's going to snap. Unlike most other "water terror" novels, he doesn't have characters diving into the water for no reason other than becoming fish food. In fact, Zachary develops hydrophobia very early into the novel and decides to do most of his investigating away from the water, adding a wonderful twist to the story. But don't worry, the monster gets enough to eat from other unwilling characters.

There are very few novels I've ever read that were literally "impossible to put down", but this one has to go into that category. Almost every free moment of my vacation (to the beach, at that) pulled me back to the book. There were only a couple of problems I had with the story. First, the language of the characters around the loch takes a little getting used to. They speak like true Scots, but it took a little while before my Southern tongue could wrap around the words. Second, early on in the novel Zachary gets an idea of what the creature could be - and Alten points that out very obviously - ruining the story for me because I started realizing where he was going with it. If he'd just cut out that one sentence, the book would have still flowed beautifully and kept us in the dark until much later. Still, this book is a keeper.

Is there anything swimming in Loch Ness? Who knows. But even if you don't believe there's something down there, you'll still enjoy the incredible story Alten's written here.

Dance of Death is a complex novel and a delight for readers of Preston and Child's other novels. Characters from almost all of their other books make appearances here. Margo Green and Bill Smithback return from Relic. Police Captain Laura Hayward returns from Reliquary. Nora Kelly returns from Thunderhead and Cabinet of Curiosities. Viola Maskeline returns from Brimstone. D'Agosta returns from several previous books. Even Genedyne, the company behind the catastrophe in Mount Dragon gets a mention. There's also a character from The Ice Limit who plays an important role here, but I'm not going to spoil that one for you.

This ambitious project might seem a little too contrived for some folks, but Preston and Child pull it off beautifully. If you're unfamiliar with Aloysius and Diogenes Pendergast, just imagine Sherlock Holmes and his brother, Mycroft, with Mycroft being crazy and out to kill Sherlock. This will give you an idea of the sophisticated villainy you'll find in this story.

At the end of Brimstone, D'Agosta believed his friend dead (for good reason). Dance of Death heralds the return of Pendergast and explains where he's been the past few months. It seems Pendergast's brother is out to commit the perfect crime. And in the process, he wants to kill Pendergast's closest friends and associates. This forces Pendergast to fight for the lives of his friends in a perfect cat-and-mouse game. As the body count rises (and a fan favorite falls), we begin to see just how diabolical the evil brother is.

You don't have to have read their previous novels to enjoy this book - though I'd suggest at least reading Brimstone first because the ending of it is pretty much spelled out for you here. Still, if you have read the other books you're really going to enjoy this one. It was almost written as an inside story for faithful readers, with the characters facing horrible situations and trials that are made worse if you know their backgrounds.

Preston and Child are great with their descriptions as well. Don't be surprised if you find yourself jumping at any little sound as you read this. Like Brimstone, this one ends with more of an eye on the sequel than anything else, but you won't feel cheated when you finish the last page. Instead, you'll find yourself anxiously awaiting Pendergast's next adventure.

Perry's newest challenge comes not from something underground, or even under ice. This time he's faced with finding the answer to a mysterious illness that's attacked his father and killed several of his father's former co-workers from a secret military project decades earlier. Racing against the clock to find a cure, Perry finds the answers may lie at the bottom of a lake. Why there? You'll have to read the story to find out.

Gansky is able to take a unique look at many almost-forgotten items from the Bible and bring them into his stories in a great way. I can't comment further because it would ruin your enjoyment of the other two Perry Sachs' stories, but if you liked those, you'll enjoy these. Perry Sachs is a modern-day Indiana Jones of sorts (minus the whip), and Gansky does a great job of crafting a detailed story around the anguish he faces trying to uncover a government conspiracy while searching for a cure to save his father. Because Gansky has created such a compassionate yet thrilling character in Sachs, Perry's friends are more than willing to join the adventure and it makes sense.

If you've read any of the other Perry Sachs adventures, you'll enjoy this one. If you haven't, that's okay. You can pick Submerged up and then go back for the others. And trust me, you will.

Though touted as a young-adult fantasy book, Circles of Seven is also intriguing, sophisticated fare for adults. Circles is third in a series (with book four slated for later this year) designed to inspire readers to seek out lives of virtue, faith and courage while discovering and using their natural talents and strengths, regardless of circumstances.

Combining the modern world of technology with the fantastical world of dragons and a dollop of medieval influence, Circles weaves a tapestry of spellbinding storytelling. This unique, ongoing tale of two part-dragon teenagers, their families, sidekicks and mentors soon carves a niche on the bookshelf. In Circles of Seven, the stakes are raised as the tasks the young heroes must complete require each to use accumulated wisdom, truths, faith and bravery to then succeed to the next level, much like a video game.

Bonnie Silver and Billy Bannister, a girl who has known of her dragoness for some time, and a boy who is still struggling with the newfound identity, have abilities unique to them -- but which complement each other. Bonnie can fly and Billy breathes fire. The duo must pass successfully through each evil circle to gain entrance into the last circle that is the prison for captives of the diabolic mistress of this alternate world.

Billy is the center of attention in this book, and it's not his breathing abilities he must draw upon. His mission requires the use of the understanding, skills and wisdom he has accumulated from the two preceding books to complete his assignment. He and Bonnie must enter into an alternative reality, a dimension of evil consisting of seven worlds of increasing darkness, and rescue those under the wicked control of a powerful, deceitful sorceress.

The growing relationship between Billy and Bonnie adds a layer of chivalry and perhaps the first budding of love that young adults all over the world experience, and when Bonnie is critically injured, Billy must decide: save her, or save the prisoners.

Davis is to be admired for illustrating throughly engaging characters, fascinating storylines and creating an alternate world. Engaging in suspense filled with colorful, imaginative worlds with likeable heroes in seemingly unsolvable predicaments, Davis has mastered the epic journey and provides readers a fantasy that celebrates God's power. The characters are each on their own path to building faith in the Creator, and the plot line serves as a good device to illustrate how hard it can be to put one's trust in God once a situation seems hopeless; but better yet, how trusting God can strengthen one's own character.

Though Circles is good read on its own, I recommend reading the first two books in this series in order to keep up with who is who and understand what being part-dragon means. The first two, Raising Dragons and The Candlestone respectively, will obviously give much support to this latest entry. But even if it means some additional effort, it is worth checking out.

Nevertheless, I heard about the Image Comics novel Quixote and went to look for it at my local comic book shop. I was drawn to the cover: the white silhouette of a man with upraised sword against a black and red cityscape backdrop. I flipped to the spine and learned that the book is characterized as "illustrated fiction," which is distinct from a "comic book" or "graphic novel" in that the art punctuates various scenes rather than propelling them forward. I read the back cover and was intrigued enough to invest my Graham Cracker Comics gift certificate almost entirely in this untested novel.

The premise of the book makes the reader into a modern-day Sancho Panza, the irrepressible sidekick who attended to the original Don between attacks on windmills. Some distance into the story we're told that Don Quixote was a real person who never died and now lives among the homeless in a cosmopolitan city. We meet him as he rescues another homeless man from certain death at the hands of a gang of young punks.

To the naked eye, Quixote is living on borrowed time in a broken body and ragged clothes. But in moments of epiphany he is revealed as a warrior of the epic class, fighting forces that likewise are shrouded in ordinariness and revealed only in the midst of battle. Quixote fights a guerilla war against a news network with the dubious tagline "Making News Happen!" Overlooking the city is the smiling yet menacing face of Henry Devlin, candidate for governor, who never enters the story and yet is always there, haunting the city, charting its course.

The borders blurring fantasy and reality are constantly in view: the homeless men who see themselves as warriors are seen by others as mentally ill vagrants, until epiphany strikes and they're revealed in truth. Then epiphany fades and we're left to decide whether to walk by faith or by sight. It's truly harmonious storytelling - the epic of coming to faith told with gentleness and respect.

The writer, Bryan J.L Glass, has a background in drama and therefore, he has a flair for the dramatic. His language nicely evokes the sixteenth-century world of Cervantes without cutting his readers off from the present - though lowbrow readers like me may find some of the vocabulary a bit of a stretch. The illustrator, Michael Oeming, is a luminary in comics, drawing the award-winning Powers series among other things. His bold images, capitalizing on shadow to add dimension to characters and plot, give enough details that we can picture our heroes and villains, but are sketchy enough that we can picture ourselves in their place.

At the skeletal level, Quixote is a story of conversion and a presentation of the gospel. But the writer refuses to sacrifice his craft for his mission, and a person could read this story quite enjoyably without feeling called to the altar at all.

To read it thus, however, would be to never look beyond the muscle to the bones holding it all together; to never dare a step across the blurry border into the realm of fantasy, which ultimately is the realm of faith. Our happy ending is the revelation that we, the reader, are indeed modern-day Dulcineas, in need of redemptive love, and Sancho Panzas, being called into a great adventure that extends beyond the page we find ourselves on.

Upon awakening, Jake finds himself back in his eighteen-year-old body on the last day of school. But the beautiful thing is he remembers everything that will occur in the next fifteen years He sees the chance to go back and fix all the mistakes of his past, including the chance to save the life of a friend who'd been crippled in a shooting Jake had failed to stop.

But terrible things happen when Jake becomes secure in the future as he realizes that perhaps things aren't as certain as he thought. The high school sweetheart he married is no longer the refined woman he remembered, but an immature teenager. Add this to the fact that he still feels as old as he was before and a little strange going out with a girl who is only eighteen, and you can see the dilemma becoming worse.

Even his plans for the future don't seem to work out perfectly. Knowing the future moneymaking stocks to pick sounds perfect - unless you're eighteen with no money. As flawless as the setup seems, it seems like things keep falling apart around him.

Williams does an incredible job with this story. It's not a science-fiction story based on time travel, despite the way the premise sounds. Instead, this is a character-driven novel full of three-dimensional people with real lives. The events in the story happen logically, and you really feel for Jake as the world falls apart around him even though he tries to make things better.

The ending of the story is great too, with one final plot twist thrown in. Williams is a very talented writer, knowing what to hold back from the reader and what to give away.

In the end, Williams is able to bring everything to a satisfactory and logical conclusion. If you're a child of the 80's, you'll love Reborn Again.

Like a John Grisham novel, Singer's works can easily be visualized as movies. Self Incrimination is no exception. Our heroine, Leslie Conners, is an inexperienced attorney thrust into the mix of a mysterious murder case involving a dead, abusive millionaire executiv, his troubled wife, son and confessed-killer step daughter. You can start imagining movie stars to play different characters already.

Leslie's life is no picnic either. Besides being in over her head with the case, she is in the midst of planning a wedding (with her boss and husband-to-be, Brad), enduring some life-threatening medical problems and trying to manage various issues with crooked cops, politicians, attorneys and reporters.

Singer does an excellent job of keeping us guessing - did Tara, the rebel stepdaughter, truly commit the crime or is there a cover up behind the scenes? Our protagonists run through a slew of theories. Singer also keeps the reader in the dark as to who some of the bad guys and good guys are, waiting until we you get to know them better. As the author usually does, he brings an underlying Christian sub-story for our main character. However, Singer does not force-feed these beliefs on the reader, but uses it as a lever to further peel back another layer of the character's complex personality.

Unlike Singer's other books, though, Self Incrimination does hit a bit of a lull mid-way through. Perhaps a bit too much weight on Leslie Conners' health problems without tying enough into the main plotline disrupts the rhythm of the read. Overall, however, it certainly does not ruin the reader's enjoyment of getting through the book.

Randy Singer is sure to have a long career in the legal thriller genre that he does so well. Despite the fact the Self Incrimination is not his best book, it is still a great work and better than most other works of this type out there.