Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

That's right, folks. It's already time for another hastily-typed missive from our favorite sportswriter, Frank Bascombe. He's got another short stack of books he's whipped through, and he's here, as always, to separate the wheat from the chaff for your convenience. If not for Frank, I don't think I'd have started covering books myself here at AICN, so I think him for leading the way. Check out what's up this time...

IT’S NOT A SECRET IF I DON’T TELL ANYONE.

By Frank Bascombe

HOSTAGE by Robert Crais

Robert Crais is the master of the big blockbuster, simple as that.

Over the last ten years, he’s developed some of the most complex and exciting characters to ever grace the pages of the “commercial thriller”. With names like Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, you can’t miss. What’s wrong with other mainstream commercial fiction is what is so right about Crais’s style. It’s clean, fast, loose, full of all the right turns of the screw. You’ll never be left yawning while reading one of his books.

In L.A. REQUIEM, a throwback to the early days of crime/police procedurals, Elvis and Joe blast through one difficult murder after the next, and they deal with the evidence that follows. Joe is the cool ex-cop, living behind the mirrored shades, and Elvis is the family man, trying to be a stand up cop, even a good lawman.

DEMOLITION ANGEL, Crais’s follow up, was a change of pace with a female bomb detective inhabiting the space between the covers. She’s got one problem heaped on top of another, and habits that don’t make for good policemen. She’s a drunk, a binger, part-time drug addict and chain smoker, and she never denies herself a pleasure, using it to drown out the pain of her past. With all of the characters Crais pleasures us with, he never fails to bring his top game to each book; either they make it through thick and thin, or they don’t. That’s why he turns out a nearly perfect story every time. This guy penned some of the best episodes of MIAMI VICE back in the days when he was making his bones.

In HOSTAGE, Crais delivers some of his most airtight and righteous fiction to date. Nothing that you’ve read in his previous novels will prepare you for the one-on-one you're going to have to endure in this off-the-tracks, slick-as-deer-guts masterpiece. Hostage negotiator Jeff Talley is unlike most of the Crais characters gone by. He’s not that complex, his family is intact (and with it, his sanity), but this book is both about him and not about him; in some ways, it’s really more focused on the overall story. He hasn't gone over the edge, and for the most part he’s well liked. Our story leads us down three divergent paths right of the bat, told from multiple points of view. For his part, Jeff Talley is basically waiting for his cue to step up to the plate. The first 40% of this story goes by so fast you almost wonder if you’re skipping pages. Then three mid-level morons strike up an idea to rob a local convenience store, and while stepping on each other’s every move, manage to kill the owner of the store, leaving behind only the video tape.

One thing leads to another, and before we know it we're on the inside of a nearby neighborhood’s wealthy mansions. These kids decide hastily, and with supremely poor judgment, that they should take the family whose home they’ve just invaded hostage. Insert Talley, former professional hostage negotiator, and now chief of police of Mayberry where the house in question is being held. It's only after Talley takes his place on the front lawn, bullhorn firmly in hand, does the cherry make its way to the top of the cake. The mob owns the family on the inside of this house, and with it, they need to find a way to own Talley. Where do you find a man’s heart if you're looking to take it? In his home... with his family.

After reaching the midway point of book, you’ll rarely need to look up at the page count, because you literally can’t put it down. You really have to hand it to Crais; with most of HOSTAGE he’s captured lighting in a bottle. Never has there been a story that is so perfectly paced and structured, well-conceived with red herrings at every turn. The entire novel is spent between the ears of three different sets of characters. You’ll have almost no time to breathe; Crais sucks up all of the air from the room. Admittedly, he makes you wait a little too long for the pay off, almost overstaying his welcome as with all of his books. What the future holds for Talley is tainted by the debts of the past, and everyone involved, from story teller to avid reader, ends up damaged goods when this one is all over.

LIT LIFE by Kurt Wenzel

This is by far the most incredible book you're likely to read this year about the life of a writer. Kyle Clayton savagely spins at the center of this tale of the pen. First timer Kurt Wenzel, former bartender and good ear, turns a well-honed eye on the trappings of Clayton’s existence. Do you think it’s easy to write a book? To draft up a short story? To tell a good yarn? Why do people think it’s all right to throw together characters who don’t make sense in places that no one would visit on a bet? There is so much bad writing out there that the buying public has been seemingly euthanasized under its weight.

Kyle Clayton, our sometimes hero and full-time narrator, sounds like Bret Easton Ellis or Jay McInerney on a really bad day. Personally, Ellis couldn’t clean my toilet with his tongue, and it’s funny to see them both poked fun at here. At least, that’s what it looks like. Kyle Clayton stumbles upon a first time home run, CHARMED LIFE, and in delivering his novel, he instantly reaches the lofty heights of New York literary celebrity.

Kyle drinks to excess, is threatened by his agent, girlfriend, fellow writers and his own publishing house, to which he now has to return his hefty advance for his second novel, which never quite made its appearance on the typewriter keys. In short, he’s screwed.

The first act winds up with Kyle meeting his literary hero Richard Whitehurst at a high brow Manhattan lit-dinner and kicking the ass of another local writer made good, landing himself on Page Six in the process. Whitehurst has been living in the well-respected, well-reviewed margins of the literary world for his entire career. In Kyle, he sees retribution, even a vision of his youth that he himself was too afraid to live. With nothing to gain, and almost nothing to lose, Whitehurst invites the pathetic Kyle out to his Sag Harbor home for a little R&R and convalescence. He wants to mentor Kyle, and for all intents and purposes, Kyle wants to receive the attention just as much as Whitehurst wants to give.

Whitehurst is struggling; he’s at odds with himself, tired of living in the shadows. He watches as Kyle mixes well with his pals, and a Tom Clancy-like neighbor takes Kyle under his wing as well. Whitehurst not only can’t get it up for his wife, he can’t get into a rhythym at his typewriter, either. What makes you want to keep these people in your life and at your fingertips is the degree to which Wenzel paints them as profoundly funny and loveable. Zoë Heller, author of EVERYTHING YOU KNOW, is the only person in recent memory to really make you love the people created on the page. Wenzel makes you want to stop people on the street, makes you feel like it is your duty to force them to buy and read this wonderful story.

Whitehurst, his wife, their daughter, Kyle, his agent, their publisher and a slew of Long Island natives fill the last half of this fable, and they each bring an enjoyable breath of fresh air to the story. Kyle begins to write a new novel under the attention of Whitehurst, even with the distractions of Whitehurst’s voluptuous wife and drug addict daughter. In the end, Kyle writes the second novel we all knew he could, and Whitehurst goes gently off into that good night. What you're left with is a concrete image of a novelist who has arrived, a writer who you’ll likely be jealous of. Wenzel’s beauty will be unleashed on the buying public in about a month. Just so you know... there are second chances in LIT LIFE, but you won’t find one if you pass this gem up.

DOGWALKER by Arthur Bradford

You may have already heard about Arthur Bradford via Dave Egger’s website, or from the fictional halls of ESQUIRE Magazine. Bradford has put together a collection of short stories that almost defy description. It doesn’t matter that Zadie Smith is quoted on the cover of the galley edition of this collection; it won’t help sell any books.

For the most part, Bradford stumbles horribly through the first few stories, which seem more like short-lived nightmares than coherent pieces of prose. Of course, not everything needs to go from A to B to C, but let's not go from A to Z without at least a few stop overs so the reader can catch his breath. After reading DOGWALKER, you’ll immediately think of Denis Johnson’s JESUS’ SON, but that’s not a good thing, if you ask me. Not only is that book a classic in most readers' minds, it's for people who in a special place and mindset.

Bradford’s characters are all obsessed with animals, specifically... you guessed it... dogs! During certain stages of these stories, you’ll think most of the characters are dogs, acting like humans. The opening story, "Catface," features a litter of puppies so deformed and mixed-up genetically that they’re described as having fins and scales. The human owners are all remarkably, strikingly similar to cats, and they work in a circus. There is a love for dogs in this country, and it makes sense; they give love unconditionally.

Somewhere along the line, people have convinced themselves that these four-legged animals can talk. In the most disturbing story, "Rosyln’s Dog," which closes this confused mess, a dog actually talks to its owner, and it turns out it’s actually a woman who only needs to be let loose to change back into her human form. While reading this slim hangnail, you’ll realize that Bradford probably doesn’t communicate well with the humans around him. He almost exclusively features characters that speak in short bursts and never explain themselves or their actions.

The most disturbing story is simply titled "Dogs," where the narrator admits immediately that he is sleeping with his pooch, and that he actually has impregnated it. Bizarre and ridiculous, filled with knotted prose, a hysterical mistreatment of the language, DOGWALKER is no better than a mixed-up collection of shaggy dog stories for the animal-obsessed, or for that particular brand of masochistic fiction devotees who thrive on the obscure, who are willing to be polluted by this sick and disturbed view of an alternative universe.