David Masiel, 2182 Kilohertz *** 1/2

2182 Kilohertz is the story of Henry Seine, a young man working for an oil company in the Arctic while dealing with the collapse of his marriage and the death of a few colleagues. He is starting to believe that he is a Jonah who brings bad luck to those around him.

The story and the character development are rudimentary and occasionally amateurish, but the setting is unique and compelling. I always like books that portray competent people going about their jobs, and I'm also a sucker for stories set in Alaska. 

Lorraine Adams, Harbor ***

The first few chapters of Harbor are excellent. Page 1 finds Aziz Arkoun standing on the deck of a tanker, freezing, with his skin bleeding from the asbestos insulation he used as a blanket, getting ready to jump into the waters of Boston Harbor. Aziz is a refugee from Algeria, and the author conveys the disorientation of his early days in America with realistic specificity: his joy at encountering street vendors who speak Arabic; his concern about letting them know he is Algerian; the apartment where the guy from his home town lives with several sketchy characters.

In contrast to the vividness of the immigrant experience, the sections of the book that take place in Algeria are vague and unfocused (partly because Aziz is reluctant to remember what happened). In the later stages of the story, we see how the FBI almost willfully misinterprets the actions of our heroes, but this too is underdeveloped.

Sergio de la Pava, A Naked Singularity *** 1/2

A Naked Singularity is a big, ambitious first novel, the kind of book where a new writer seems to want to fit in everything he has ever wanted to say. De la Pava surrounds the main story with digressions and philosophical interludes on subjects ranging from the boxer Wilfred Benitez to The Honeymooners.

Our narrator, Casi, is a public defender in Manhattan. In Part 1, he describes in fascinating detail the legal process from the time I am arrested through my arraignment. He handles numerous colorful defendants. In Part 2, one of Casi's fellow lawyers convinces him to commit "the perfect crime," while Casi also tries to help prevent the execution of a mentally-challenged man on Death Row. Part 3 describes the fallout from the action in Part 2, with a heavy Crime and Punishment influence.

I loved Part 1. The plot was realistic, the setting was well rendered, and the philosophical asides were well integrated with the story. (The theme was how/whether we can really know other people.) These virtues were less in evidence as the book went on. The key character in Part 2, Dane, was clearly a Tyler Durden-style projection of Casi's; the heist planning was nowhere near perfect, and the digressions felt random rather than thematic. In Part 3, the tone became entirely comic, and realism flew out the window.

But I sure did like the first half...