THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (Jack Ketchum) - September 25/08

Though Ketchum is certainly a good writer, The Girl Next Door never even remotely becomes the horrifying piece of work it's clearly meant to be due entirely to the inauthenticity of the situation. I mean, okay, that lady might've been crazy enough to torture Meg, but all the neighborhood kids too? Including the narrator?? It's just too ridiculous to be plausible, and while the whole thing is basically readable, it never becomes compelling or engrossing. ** out of ****

HOLLYWOOD UNDERCOVER (Ian Halperin) - September 14/08

A sporadically interesting yet hopelessly long-winded autobiography, Hollywood Undercover is ultimately foiled by the exceedingly obnoxious shenanigans of Halperin himself (this is, after all, a guy who refers to himself as "His Highness"). Halperin's penchant for bogging down the book with long, pointless stories about Scientology and the blacklist (among others) only contributes to the uneven vibe, with his tales of success within Hollywood (ie working on The Aviator) easily proving to be highlights. ** out of ****

COLLISION (Jeff Abbott) - September 11/08

This action-packed book is generally entertaining enough and does feature several vivid characters, but Abbott tends to bog the thing down with a plot that's occasionally too complicated for its own good and action sequences that are just too descriptive. **1/2 out of ****

THE GARDEN OF LAST DAYS (Andre Dubus III) - September 1/08

This incredibly long novel does feature some very vivid characters yet it's impossible not to think that the whole thing would've worked better at half the length. The separate storylines - including stripper April, hijacker Bassam, and inadvertent kidnapper AJ - are generally interesting enough, though the book often dwells in the backgrounds and most minute details of its characters' lives. **1/2 out of ****