The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 79

TBO.com THE TAMPA TRIBUNE SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2005 BAYLIFE 7 BOOKS REVIEWS Fantastic Characters Make Sequel To Funke inkheart' Spring To Life rnHl phile characters, Funke is entranced by the world of the book-within-a-book (called that continues to cast a long shadow over the lives of Meggie and her family. So when the action shifts to that enchanted realm of strolling players, princes and other fantastic creatures, the whole story springs to life. Characters who were vague around the edges in "Inkheart" become much more interesting in "Inkspell," especially the fire-eater Dustfinger and Fenoglio, the writer trapped inside his own invention. There are also vivid new additions, from Princess Violante (also known as Her Ugliness) to the nonroyal Black Prince, who travels with his bear. Trie villains are still a bit one-note they come across as the Keystone Mafia but serve their purpose.

More interesting is the frank way Funke treats the central characters, acknowledging the complexity of their feelings, whether within a marriage or between parent and child. The plot in "Inkspell" takes on the epic dimensions of a good old-fashioned adventure yarn right up until the cliff-hanger ending. A third volume is undoubtedly in the works, especially since "Inkheart" is reportedly in line for a big-screen adaptation as are "The Thief Lord" and "Dragon Rider," a 1997 work that has been reissued to capitalize on Funke's growing fame. Amanda Henry is arts critic for The Tampa Tribune. By AMANDA HENRY "Inkspell," by Cornelia Funke (Scholastic, $20) In thp publishing world, there are two distinct eras of children's literature: "B.H." and T.H." before and after Harry, as in Potter.

Following the stunning global success of the "Harry Potter" books (and associated merchandise), industry types realized that a market still exists for fantastic fiction. The resulting rush to find the next J.K. Rowling has been a boon for a number of writers, some more deserving than others. With her latest book, "Inkspell," Cornelia Funke moves near the head of the pack. Already popular in her native Germany, Funke was "discovered" when "The Thief Lord" was translated into English in 2002.

Set in Venice, this tale of a band of orphans who hide out in an abandoned theater and survive on petty thievery was a hit with readers hungry for another magical adventure story about plucky kids with limited adult supervision. "The Thief Lord" lacked the taut plotting and characterization of Rowling's work, and Funke's imagined world felt less rich and complete. The writing was also a bit stiff, though it's hard to know whether the fault lies with the original or the translation. But her next book, "Inkheart," was an improvement on all fronts. Although it starts slowly, the story is a winner.

Young Meggie lives an itinerant life with her father, Mo, an expert book- Dubner (Morrow, A maverick scholar applies economic thinking to everything. 4. "The Year of Magical Thinking," by Joan Didion. (Knopf, The author's attempts to come to terms with the death of her husband and illness of their daughter. 5.

"1776," by David McCul-lough (Simon Schuster, $32). An account of America's founding year. 6. "What Remains," by Carole Radziwill (Scribner, A memoir of a suburban girl who grew up to marry a Kennedy nephew. 7.

"Life Is Not a Fairy Tale," by Fantasia (Fireside Simon Schuster, An "American Idol" winner reflects on her past. 8. "Blink," by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, The author explores the importance of hunch and instinct to the mind. 9. "The Game," by Neil Strauss (ReganBooksHarp-erCollins, A writer spends two years among pickup artists.

10. "Phenomenon," by Sylvia Browne with Lindsay Harrison (Dutton, A guide to the paranormal. 11. "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed," by Alan Alda. (Random House, A memoir by the actor.

12. "No Excuses," by Kyle Maynard (Regnery, The memoir of a young wrestling champion who was bom without hands or feet. 13. "Symptoms of Withdrawal," by Christopher Kennedy Lawford (Morrow, The son of Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy recalls his substance abuse and recovery. 14.

"A Crack in the Edge of the World," by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins, A historian describes the Great California Earthquake of 1906. 15. "Unlikely Angel," by Ashley Smith with Stacy Mat-tingly (MorrowHarperCollins Zondervan, The story of the woman held hostage by an escaped fugitive. Miscellaneous binder. Yet as Meggie discovers, Mo's affinity for the written word extends well beyond repairing worn bindings.

The mystery of her mother's disappearance, and the reason they've been on the run all these years, is a magical secret that blurs the line between books and reality. As gripping as "Inkheart" becomes by the end, it pales in comparison to its sequel, "Inkspell." Much like her biblio HARDCOVER BESTSELLERS Fiction "The Lincoln Lawyer," by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown, A Los Angeles criminal defense attorney takes a complicated and dangerous case. 2. "Blue Smoke," by Nora Roberts (Putnam, An arson investigator is menaced by a sociopath. 3.

"A Breath of Snow and Ashes," by Diana Gabaldon (Delacoret, $28). In 1772, the British governor of North Carolina asks Jamie to support the king, but Jamie's time-traveling wife assures him independence is inevitable. 4. "Son of a Witch," by Gregory Maguire (Regan-Books HarperCollins, Liir makes his way through Oz; a sequel to "Wicked." 5. "The March," by E.L.

Doctorow (Random House, Story of Sherman's sweep through the South. 6. "Goodnight Nobody," by Jennifer Weiner (Atria, $26). An unhappy suburban mother gains her independence. 7.

"The Da Vinci Code," by Dan Brown (Doubleday, A murder at the Louvre leads to the discovery of a secret society. 8. "Gabriel's Angel," by Nora Roberts (Silhouette, On a snowy night in Colorado, a man saves a stranded pregnant woman 9. "School Days by Robert B. Parker (Putnam, A woman hires Spenser to prove that her grandson wasn't involved in a school shooting.

10. "Everyone Worth Knowing," by Lauren Weisberger (Simon Schuster, A woman goes to work for a PR firm where she is paid to party. 11. "The Historian," by Elizabeth Kostova (Little, Brown, A young woman's quest to learn the truth about her father and mother involves Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. 12.

"On Beauty," by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press, Battles between two families. 13. "Anansi Boys," by Neil Gaiman (Morrow, After his father dies, Fat Charlie learns Dad led a secret life. 14. "The Assassins," by Oliver North and Joe Musser (Broadman Holman, Elite unit is dispatched to Iran.

15. "The Sunflower," by Richard Paul Evans (Simon Schuster, A woman volunteers at an orphanage in Peru and learns to love again. Nonfiction "The City of Falling Angels," by John Berendt (Penguin, The author investigates a fire in Venice. 2. "The World Is Flat," by Thomas L.

Friedman (Farrar, Straus Giroux, A columnist analyzes 21st century economics and foreign policy. 3. "Freakonomics," by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Plague Threat Adds Chills To WWII Novel discarding it.

The high-ranking Nazi SS officers know the invasion is coming, but they don't know when or how. Their goal is to spread the "grabbringer" (grave brin-ger) plague to the enemy. Their fear is that they will soon be turning blue and fighting for breath. An ugly death, this plague. The majority of the action takes place in a French coastal farming village.

The villagers, unwittingly through helping Wollenstein's escaped Jews, have also become infected with the plague. Wollenstein is searching for his Jews, and Brink, Alix and her lover, Kirn, are searching for Wollenstein. There are bombings, death, love and, of course, hate. The story raises a number of morality questions: Is treason OK when it's used to save your country? Is revenge ever justified? As if war weren't frightening enough, the element of spreading the Black Death, proposed in our own perilous times, makes the story ever more chilling. Wollenstein and his "Pasturella pestis" could easily be contemporary terrorists plotting the demise of the Western world.

This isn't so much a "war is hell" tale as it is an hourlong Ollie North "War Stories" segment. It's a good book to curl up with on a rainy Florida weekend. Karrel Buckingltam is a legal assistant at a Tampa law firm. By KARREL BUCKINGHAM "Midnight Plague," by Greg Keizer (Putnam, $26) Pieces of surgical tape wrapped around each finger on American soldier-doctor Frank Brink's hand provide no clues to those he encounters; they are his countdown to the Normandy invasion. Problem is, only he and a few others know the bigger story.

A Nazi doctor has created a pneumatic form of the plague and possibly a way to spread it. Both Brink and Dr. Wollenstein, the Nazi, have been working on an antibiotic. The Germans know the invasion is coming, just not when. So the plan is to spread the plague in Britain before the Americans attack.

The antibiotic is to save the Nazis just in case their plan goes awry. Things do go wrong when Wollenstein's infected "test" Jews escape. Alix, a young French woman, talks her father into taking the Jews to England to search for her commando English lover. She is sure her lover will know what to do, sure he will help them all. Alix and her papa have no idea what the Jews are sick with and how close death is for them all.

Soon Papa and the Jews are dead in an English hospital, and this is where Brink and Alix hook up. They leave the English shores with her commando and head back to the coast of France, where they ally with 1. "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You To Know About," by Kevin Trudeau (Alliance Publishing Group, Remedies that do not include drugs or surgery. 2. "The Purpose-Driven Life," by Rick Warren (Zondervan, Finding the meaning of life through God.

3. "Your Best Life Now," by Joel Osteen (Warner Faith, A faith-based approach to living. 4. "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes," by Bill Wat-terson (Andrews McMeel, $150). A three-volume boxed collection of all 10 years of the comic strip.

5. "It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken," by Greg Behrendt and Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt (Broadway, A guide to getting over unsatisfactory relationships. The New York Times a German policeman. So begins Gregg Keizer's second novel, a mixture of war and medical terror. It's a good tale and worth the read, but it has a lot to say and only so many pages in which to say it.

Even the author admits in his acknowledgments that it was a tough write. Brink daily removes a piece of that tape from a finger, rolling it in a tiny ball and Vengeance Drives Dark Action Tale Insights On Pop Band Fall Short Uptown Scene Lures N.Y. Gal ft iht- devil wears prada everyone worm knowing TH( SHORT lift, G'fn 0 UNf XPtCTED BtSURRf CTWN OF THE t'XW- Of POWER POP LAUREN WEISBERGER I By H.R ALBARELLI "Drive," by James Sallis (Poisoned Pen, $20) Mesmerizing, amoral protagonists have peopled modern novels for some time, but refinement of such characters has taken on new dimensions. Especially noteworthy of late is Cormac McCarthy's Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men." Chigurh, best described as Nietzsche on acid and steroids armed with a Mossberg 250, is a violence-prone man. Now comes Driver, protagonist of James Sallis' enthralling new novel, "Drive." Driver, perhaps more conventionally principled but just as deadly as Chigurh, makes his living during the day as a Hollywood stunt driver and at night as the getaway helmsman in criminal capers.

Driver, like Chigurh, is not a man you want to cross. Born into a dysfunctional household his father tutored him in burglary; his abused mother attacked his father with a knife Driver landed in a foster home, from which he eventually escaped by stealing the family's Ford Galaxie. In Los Angeles, life takes better turns for Driver: He By CURTIS ROSS "Big Star The Short Life, Painful Death and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop," by Rob Jova-novic (Chicago Review Press, $17) Big Star, like The Velvet Underground, sold few records in its lifetime but influenced countless musicians such as R.E.M., The Replacements, The Posies and Matthew Sweet. Those performers helped spread the word, which is why it's easier to find Big Star's albums now than it was in the early 70s when they were recorded. The band's story is filled with death, drugs, depression and all manner of dark strangeness.

It would make for a great book. This isn't it. Jovanovic deserves credit for his efforts. Big Star's prime mover, Alex Chilton, refused to be interviewed, and founding member Chris Bell died in 1978. Jovanovic tracks down nearly everyone else with any connection to the band, and their comments provide rich details.

But too many questions go By ESTHER HAMMER "Everyone Worth Knowing," by Lauren Weisberger (Simon Schuster, $23.95) Those who enjoyed Lauren Weisberger's first novel, "The Devil Wears Prada," will not be disappointed by her second. "Everyone Worth Knowing" delivers the same sassy humor as the first, along with an outsider-on-the-inside assessment of the ferocious fascination of New Yorkers for fashion and celebrity. Told through the eyes of twentysomething Bette Robinson, the book is a mystery and a quirky love story. Robinson, who quits her secure but boring bank job, manages through her uncle, Will, to land a prestigious job at Kelly and Company, an agency that plans high-end parties at nightclubs. There-in lie the contrast, the conflict and the Bette is no high-end girl, preferring Harlequin romances and lazy mornings with her dog, Millington.

But she can't resist the chance to rub elbows with some of New York's richest and most talked-about. One of those is Phillip unanswered. There certainly! are reasons for Chilton's emotional plummet, which led to the band's brilliant, disturbing third album "ThirdSister Lovers" but Jovanovic doesn't put the pieces together. Nor does he find the source of Chilton's ire toward producer Jon Ti-ven, with whom he collaborated on his first post-Big Star recordings. Also, the editing is atrocious.

A fact checker could have corrected some errors, but a firm hand was needed to lighten some of the author's unwieldy prose. Curtis Ross is pop usic critic for The Tampa Tribune. Weston, who, from his lofty imperial perch, deigns to flatter Bette with his attentions. This little tidbit winds up greatly inflated in a gossip column written by "Ellie," whose true identity remains unknown until the end. El-lie's "observations" become more and more outlandish as the book goes on, with claims of trysts where none exists between Bette and Phillip.

Meanwhile, Bette's attitude toward Phillip and her fascination with the whole upper-crust scene undergo some major changes after she meets a bouncer named Sammy. Esther Hammer is a correspondent for the Tribune. earns a good living stunt driving and falls in love with a single mother. Then everything goes to hell, and Driver finds himself in a Motel 6 room surrounded by dead bodies and a large amount of cash. Sallis writes: "Driver would wonder whether he had made a terrible mistake.

Later still, of course, there'd be no doubt." Driver has been double-crossed and, despite the pile of cash and easy access to flight, he opts to seek vengeance extreme vengeance. "Drive" is a dark, poetic action tale that can't help but draw comparison to noir books of the '40s and '50s. HP. Albarelli is a novelist who lives in Pinellas County. i.