We know that our region of the country has produced more highly gifted, motivated fiction writers over the last hundred years or so than any other, and we concede that, yes, there probably is something in the water. It has become customary, perhaps to the point of being trite, for reviewers in the South to render tribute to an outstanding, living writer by linking him or her to a famous counterpart from a previous era in the same neck of the woods. Tom Franklin, of Oxford, Mississippi, and before that Dickinson, Alabama, does not need such puffery. He has reached the top of the ladder with his previous novels, Smonk and Hell at the Breech, and the story collection Poachers. But a thought that reoccurred to me as I read this latest work is that Franklin appears to have channeled Faulkner’s passion, spirit, and insight, without exhibiting any sign of the latter’s occasional affectation.

At the start of Bone Appétit, Sarah Booth’s buddy and partner Tinkie takes her to Greenwood, Mississippi, to the Viking stove cooking school and spa to be pampered and distracted and find some emotional healing. At the same time, there is a beauty pageant/cooking contest for young women wishing to be the spokesperson for Viking. The situation is ripe for humor and Haines has written perhaps her funniest novel.

For readers, this first person account of a military typist from Mobile as he experiences General MacArthur’s post-World War II occupation of Japan is immediate and compelling. “Van” Vancleave expects a routine tour of duty, but life hands him something quite different when his roommate turns out to be a shyster who weaves the unsuspecting Van into his schemes. Then, to complicate matters even further, Van’s wife sends disconcerting news from home, leading Van to examine his life and the circumstances around him. The Typist, set convincingly at the mid-point of the twentieth century, underscores the fact that the problems of war know no century.

Ruby Pearl Saffire is a true patriot, as evidenced by her bejeweled red, white, and blue name. And like any true patriot (as opposed to the impostor who simply waves or wears a flag— symbolism and substance are two very different things according to Ruby), she has penned a manifesto. Ruby’s manifesto is not for the faint-of-heart, for it has less to do with politics and sociological theories and more to do with sex (XXX sex, to be exact).

Few Americans will admit to not having read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a classic tale of childhood by Mark Twain, literary icon. And though decades may have passed since readers discovered Twain’s characters, they still can recall vividly the memorable fence-whitewashing scene, the witnessing of a murder by Tom and his friend Huck, the fear of Tom and Becky Thatcher while lost in the cave where the murderer is hiding. Published in 1876, Twain’s depiction of the adventures of childhood—both fantasy and real-life—has become much more than “a book for boys, pure & simple,” as he had planned. The story has survived as a tribute to the innocence of childhood, as a reflection on the pains of growing up, as a recollection of the rural and small-town life of a now-distant past. The Big Read: Alabama Edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer invites all Alabamians, young and old, to rediscover and to revisit this treasure of American literature.

In this fast moving novel brimming with more family secrets and drama than a family reunion gown awry, twenty-two year old Lizzy Wallace is torn between caring for the sick and dying and fending off relatives stealing family heirlooms. Lizzy, an emergency room nurse in Montgomery, returns to her small hometown to be with her mother, who is dying of cancer. Pam wants to die at home surrounded by friends. She hopes to make peace with her sister, Tanya, but Tanya will have none of that. Tanya is too busy going through Pam’s china cabinet and closets looking for heirlooms. She particularly wants the silverware that Grandmother gave to Pam.

From the publisher: Epic in its own manner, yet introspective in its intimacy, The Running Horse of Santa Teresa follows cousins Quinn, Rem, and Nelphi as they search for their place in a harsh world.

When Ace Atkins decided to drop his successful Nick Travers detective series in favor of meticulously researched, historical, stand-alone thrillers, some were dubious. Doubts are dispelled now, however.

White Shadow dealt with criminals in Tampa in 1955; Wicked City was set in the magnificently corrupt Phenix City, Alabama; Devil’s Garden told the Fatty Arbuckle story as it has never been told, that is, accurately; and now we have Infamous, the violent, absurd, and truly comical tale of George “Machine Gun” Kelly and his beautiful and very sexy wife Kathryn.

Carolyn Haines, a native Mississippian, now of Semmes, Alabama, is a noted writer of stand-alone mysteries and the author of the charming Bones series of Delta mysteries. Haines, who has received the Richard Wright Award and who will later this month receive the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year in Monroeville, Alabama, has taken some time out to solicit, collect, and edit these nineteen short stories, all set in the Mississippi Delta and contributed by writers with a strong Delta connection.

Joyce Scarbrough is the author of three books, True Blue Forever, Different Roads, and now this best of the three, Symmetry. One can see her skill as an author in the manner that she puts the reader into each scene and shows the dynamics of a marriage going sour but with both people truly loving each other.

Any one of Stacia Saint Owens’ female protagonists could be the title character of The Doors song “L.A. Woman.” However, Auto-Erotica is more than motels, money, murder, and madness. The winner of the prestigious Tartt First Fiction Award is also brutal, funny, sexy, and consistently compelling. Spanning thirteen tautly written short stories, Saint Owens recalibrates Hollywood’s soft filter focus into stark high definition and reveals the flaws and scars that can only be seen at pointblank range.

A number of Alabama writers have won the Pulitzer Prize: Harper Lee, Rick Bragg, Howell Raines, and Diane McWhorter, among others, but only one Alabama writer has ever won it twice and that writer is E. O. Wilson. When the state’s most honored writer decides to publish a novel, at age 80, attention must be paid. There is no denying that Anthill is first and foremost a novel of ideas, written to bring attention to what Wilson sees as an absolutely crucial issue.

Brad Watson is neither a fast writer nor a prolific writer. He is, however, a genuinely serious writer who polishes each piece of fiction until it is as fine as he can get it. The results have been remarkable. His first book of stories, Last Days of the Dog-Men (1996), won the Sue Kaufman Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for a first volume of fiction. His second book, the novel The Heaven of Mercury (2002), was runner-up for the National Book Award, and now Watson has released Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives, which contains the title piece, a novella of seventy-two pages, and eleven other stories.

From the publisher: Pig-Skinned tells the story of the rise and fall of football superstar Vaughn Mitchell, who goes from playing for Bama before moving to San Francisco to play for the 49ers. His dreams are dashed as an old injury forces him to look for new work. His wife gets the idea to start a surf outing group for children with autism and Asperger’s Syndrome to honor her younger brother who suffers from Asperger’s. However, long before they make it to California, they must contend with the aftermath of a hate crime that Vaughn and his cousin were victims of in the locker room, resulting in the expulsion of two white, racist teammates. The bitter teammates are out for blood as their football dreams are taken away after being expelled, and they begin threatening Vaughn and his family.

It is rude to tell a lot of the plot when talking about thrillers, and I couldn’t if I wanted to. There is simply too much. This novel has executions and assassination attempts; suicide bombers and pre-planted bombs; secret identities; moles and turncoats; gorgeous, dangerous women in tailored suits; a villain’s lair right out of James Bond; high-tech computerized bugging and tracking devices; and twenty-first-century weapons you just won’t believe, although, sadly, I do.

From the publisher: “Cookie & Me is every bit as evocative of race relations in the South as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The story is set in the turbulent sixties and features two main characters who struggle across racial lines to form a friendship that sustains them both. The writing is so visceral, you can almost hear Aretha, feel the humidity and taste the mulberries. I love this book.” —Lu Vickers

From the publisher: Set in the southern Appalachians, R.T. Smith’s third collection of stories also inhabits that allegorical realm where the patterns of human travail are dramatized and played out endlessly. Whether incarcerated in penal institutions or imprisoned by their own obsessions and transgressions, the bear hunters, cockfighters, con artists, ginseng diggers, and school teachers of these inventive narratives demonstrate that tragedy, comedy, and travesty are seldom as distinct as we want to believe.

When I first held this volume I was disappointed to see it contained only seven new stories with another seven “selected” from previously published works. Like Lee Smith fans everywhere, I already own Cakewalk, Me and My Baby View the Eclipse, and News of the Spirit. But disappointment soon turned to gratitude as I reread Smith’s story of heartbreak and healing, “Bob, a Dog,” and then to the delight of reunion with one of my favorite short stories of all time, “Intensive Care.”

In 2008 I commented on Kopaska-Merkel’s first collection, Nursery Rhyme Noir. That volume was a retelling, in the form of hard-boiled detective fiction, of the murky, mysterious stories of Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, Little Bo Peep and others. Those short- shorts were odd, but the volume was held together by the Mother Goose nursery rhymes. This volume, The Simian Transcript, is even odder and held together by nothing in particular, that I can see, except perhaps a wildly active imagination.

The publicity for Once a Spy has been craftily qualified. Birmingham author Keith Thomson is making his “debut on the thriller stage.” There is no mention of Thomson’s two previous novels, Pirates of Pensacola (2005) and Gus Openshaw’s Whale-Killing Journal (2007). I think this is because the previous two novels were terrifically amusing comedies, and the spy novel, as practiced by John Le Carre and Len Deighton, or, farther back, Graham Greene or Eric Ambler, is very serious business indeed.  Maybe Doubleday just didn’t know how to package Once a Spy. It is a hybrid—a truly funny spy novel.