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ABSENT FRIENDS
S.J. Rozan
Mystic River meets The 9/11 Commission Report in this moody, smartly
written, and overlong mystery. Fireman Jimmy McCaffery died a hero in
the World Trade Center. Or did he? An aggressive New York reporter
thinks she's discovered something fishy in McCaffery's past, and begins
investigating the circle of working-class friends with whom he grew up
on Staten Island. The long, tense windup suggests dark deeds and sordid
secrets, but the payoff never arrives.
B
DEAR ZOE
Philip Beard
On the morning of 9/11, 15-year-old Tess DeNunzio momentarily leaves her
3-year-old half sister, Zoe, playing in their front yard in Pittsburgh
so she can watch news of the terrorist attacks on TV. A
driver — distracted by the same news on the radio — hits the little girl.
Philip Beard's slight epistolary debut attempts to portray a family paralyzed
by their private grief, but in fact the novel's more affecting segments
describe Tess' sexual and emotional coming-of-age.
B
WINDOWS ON THE WORLD
Frédéric Beigbeder
Frenchman Frédéric Beigbeder braids together the musings of two fictional
narrators: a shallow Texan who takes his sons for an ill-fated breakfast
at Windows on the World atop Tower 1, and a neurotic French writer who
broods over the book he's writing about 9/11. While serving up a few
clever insights and pretentious inanities (''People who don't understand
lap dancing will never understand America''), this ambitious mess revives
the horror of 9/11 but sheds no new light on that day.
C+
BEYOND TUESDAY MORNING
Karen Kingsbury
This sequel to the popular One Tuesday Morning continues the romantic
and spiritual adventures of Jamie Bryan, whose firefighter husband
perished on 9/11. In the 2003 book, a stranger who looked exactly (but
exactly!) like Jamie's husband emerged from the rubble to live with her
before regaining his memory and returning to his family. Now, his hunky
brother comes along and by chance (by chance!) meets Jamie. Their
''chemistry'' and Christian devotion spell, one hopes, a happy ending to
the series.
D-
