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"A novel is a mirror carried along a main road."
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2008 Fiction All Stars 
Titles Which Received Three or More Starred Reviews From Major Review Sources
2008 Fiction All Stars
Cheating at Solitaire
by Haddam, Jane
Former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian, fleeing from his own wedding preparations, is hired to review a case--one that he finds has little evidence and twisted by an out-of-control media--in what may be the most compelling case of his entire career.
The Fault Tree
by Ure, Louise
Eight years after being blinded in a horrific car accident that also claimed the life of her toddler niece, Arizona auto mechanic Cadence Moran becomes the target of a killer who, unaware of her disability, believes that she can identify the getaway car in the murder of her elderly neighbor.
Forgery of Venus
by Gruber, Michael
Gruber creates a fascinating world of secrets, genius, and conspiracies and combines it with brilliant storytelling, complex characterizations, and sterling prose to produce this spellbinding novel.
Gas City
by Estleman, Loren D.
Setting this drama in a blue-collar metropolis dominated by an oil company, Estleman crafts a fascinating, deadly tapestry of love, ambition, revenge, and redemption--in all, a stunning portrait of the human condition.
A Golden Age
by Tahmima, Anam
In her deeply moving debut novel, Anam tells the story of a young widow who becomes embroiled in the violent political turmoil in 1971 that transforms a brutal Pakistani civil war into a fight for the death for Bangladeshi independence.
Johnny One-Eye: A Tale of the American Revolution
by Charyn, Jerome
Set in New York, this comic masterpiece reimagines the American Revolution with a one-eyed spy, a heroic whorehouse madam, and a cunning George Washington.
Judas Horse
by Smith, April
Maverick FBI Special Agent Ana Grey goes undercover to infiltrate the volatile core of a domestic terrorist cell, where she must negotiate a minefield of loyalty and betrayal under constant threat of discovery.
Killing Rommel
by Pressfield, Steven
Hitler's legions have swept across Europe, leaving Churchill and the English isolated. In North Africa, Rommel and his Panzers have routed the British Eighth Army and stand poised to overrun Egypt, Suez, and the oil fields of the Middle East.
Lavinia
by Le Guin, Ursula K.
In The Aeneid, Virgil's hero fights to claim the king's daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to found an empire. Lavinia herself never speaks a word in the poem. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin gives Lavinia a voice in a novel that takes the reader to the half-wild world of ancient Italy, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills.
Olive Kitteridge
by Strout, Elizabeth
At the edge of the continent, in the small town of Crosby, Maine, lives Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher who deplores the changes in her town and in the world at large but doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her.
The Outcast
by Jones, Sadie
In this brilliant debut, Jones tells the story of a boy who refuses to accept the polite lies of a tightly knit community that rejects love in favor of appearances. Written with nail-biting suspense, The Outcast is an emotionally powerful testament to the powers of love and understanding.
Plague of Doves
by Erdrich, Louise
In this multigenerational tale of sin, redemption, murder, and vengeance, a senseless and horrific crime in 1911 forever changes the lives of several families living in and around Pluto, North Dakota, a white town on the far western edge of an Ojibwe reservation.
The Silver Swan
by Black, Benjamin
The inimitable Quirke--the irascible, formerly hard-drinking Dublin pathologist--returns in another spellbinding crime novel, in which a young woman's dubious suicide sets off a new string of hazards and deceptions.
Three Girls and Their Brother
by Rebeck, Theresa
In this sharp-edged drama that unfolds in New York's celebrity fast lane, it takes an awful incident with a famous movie star to blast three famous girls--and their brother--out of their self-destructive spiral.
Other Notable Fiction of 2008
American Wife
by Sittenfeld, Curtis
When her husband is elected president of the United States, Alice Blackwell finds her new life as first lady increasingly tumultuous as she reflects on the privileges and difficulties of her position as her private beliefs conflict with her public responsibilities.
Art of Racing in the Rain
by Stein, Garth
Evaluating his life on the eve of his death, atypical canine Enzo considers the sacrifices his master, Denny Swift, has made in his pursuit of becoming a professional race car driver, and the dog's own efforts to preserve the Swift family.
Atmospheric Disturbances
by Galchen, Rivka
The psychiatrist-narrator of this brainy, whimsical first novel believes that his beautiful, much-younger Argentine wife has been replaced by an exact double.
Beautiful Children
by Bock, Charles
The disappearance of twelve-year-old Newell Ewing and the resulting mystery brings together the lives of a group of seemingly unrelated strangers in Las Vegas--including his parents, an illustrator, a stripper, a teenage anarchist, and a group of street runaways.
Beijing Coma
by Ma, Jian
Awakening after a decade of unconsciousness, former Tiananmen Square protester Dai Wei learns that his mother had sold one of his kidneys to finance his care, and that the China he knew has undergone radical change.
Bleeding Kansas
by Paretsky, Sara
The pious late-twentieth-century descendants of anti-slavery emigrants worry about maintaining religious superiority over a rival family while launching an active harassment campaign against a Wiccan newcomer, an effort that is challenged by a young man's military service and the birth of a promising cow.
Blue Star
by Earley, Tony
A sequel to Jim the Boy finds a teenage Jim falling in love with classmate Crissie Steppe, whose boyfriend has joined the Navy on the eve of World War II and whom Jim vows to win over in the young soldier's absence, until the sobering realities of war bring all of them a new perspective.
Fine Just the Way It Is
by Proulx, Annie
A collection of nine western-themed tales features an array of pioneer country inhabitants from different backgrounds.
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Barrows, Annie and Shaffer, Mary Ann
In 1946, as England emerges from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton finds inspiration for her next book in her correspondence with a native of Guernsey and his eccentric friends, who tell her about their island, the books they love, German occupation, and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a book club born as an alibi during German occupation.
Home
by Robinson, Marilynne
Returning to Gilead to care for her dying father, Glory Boughton, the daughter of John Ames's closest friend, is joined by her long-absent brother, with whom she bonds throughout his struggles with alcoholism, unemployment, and their father's traditionalist values.
Lush Life
by Price, Richard
Eric Cash, the 34-year-old bartender at Café Berkmann and a would-be screenwriter, ends up in jail as a murder suspect and it's up to two New York City police detectives to find out the truth.
Mercy
by Morrison, Toni
In exchange for a bad debt, an Anglo-Dutch trader takes on Florens, a young slave girl, who feels abandoned by her slave mother and who searches for love--first from an older servant woman at her master's new home, and then from a handsome free blacksmith, in a novel set in late seventeenth-century America.
Most Wanted Man
by Le Carre, John
Smuggled into Hamburg, Issa, a young Russian man carrying a large amount of cash and claiming to be a devout Muslim, forms an unlikely alliance with Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, and Tommy Brue, a sixty-year-old scion of a failing British bank, as they become victims of rival intelligence operations in the War on Terror.
Reserve
by Banks, Russell
Losing her father to a heart attack on the same night she meets a politically liberal artist, scandal-marked heiress Vanessa Cole hides a dark family secret that takes her from the Adirondacks to war-torn Europe and threatens everyone she encounters.
School on Heart's Content Road
by Chute, Carolyn
Mickey Gammon, a disaffected fifteen-year-old dropout kicked out of his home by his half-brother, is introduced to the secretive world of the Settlement, a rural cooperative run by The Prophet, where he encounters another deserted child, six-year-old Jane.
Story of Edgar Sawtelle
by Wroblewski, David
A Hamlet-style tale that also celebrates the ancient alliance between humans and dogs follow the coming-of-age of speech-disabled Wisconsin youth Edgar, who bonds with three yearling canines and struggles to prove that his sinister uncle is responsible for his father's death.
