Dear Burning Questions,
I was wondering if you could help me find any information on Mark Z. Danielewski. The House of Leaves and The Whalstoe Letters are two of the most original and exciting works I have ever come across. With a cult following as rabid as his, I would think that he would be furiously writing other material.

Matthew Dobson
Port Charlotte, Florida

Danielewski spent 10 years writing the 736-page House of Leaves (The Whalstoe Letters was originally contained in that book), a story centered around a family's discovery that their house is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. Even before the book was published in 2000 by Pantheon, Danielewski's did-this-really-happen plot had gained a large following as friends passed around copies of the manuscript and chapters were posted on the Internet. Asked by BQ whether he is working on a new writing project, the author replied in verse:

"Of course.
And at five years and counting,
forgiving impulses to wander,
elide and frequently loiter,
perhaps amounting
to something
a bit shorter."

BACK ON THE BAYOU

Dear Burning Questions,
James Lee Burke is one of my favorite authors. I just completed Last Car to Elysian Fields and am puzzled by something: there was hardly any explanation for the drastic turn of events between the end of the last book, Jolie Blons Bounce, and the start of this one. Did I miss something? Will the Dave Robicheaux series continue?

Stephanie J. Kostka
Flint, Michigan

Burke says he chose to handle the situation (which we won't specify in order to avoid revealing the plot) in that manner because he felt earlier books in the series had already dealt with similar themes. "Elysian Fields treats the passing of an era," he says. But, don't worry; Burke tells BQ that he's working on a another Dave Robicheaux novel and has also been busy writing short stories. Though he says he has no plans to publish the short fiction at this time, the Robicheaux novel will be published by Simon & Schuster sometime in 2005. Meanwhile, Burke's In the Moon of Red Ponies (S&S) was released in June. The Billy Bob Holland novel finds good guy Holland coming to the aid of a friend in Montana and fighting nemesis Wyatt Dixon.

GOOD GENES

Dear Burning Questions,
Alafair Burke wrote a very promising first novel in 2003, Judgment Calls, that featured Deputy DA Samantha "Sam" Kincaid. Is she planning another book?

Martha Evans
Fairfield, California

As you may already know, Alafair Burke, a former deputy district attorney herself, is the daughter of James Lee Burke. In her second Sam Kincaid novel, Missing Justice (Holt), released this summer, Kincaid investigates the case of Clarissa Easterbrook, a judge who first goes missing, then turns up dead. As if Easterbrook's pending cases and financial secrets don't yield enough clues, her affair with a politician adds another line of inquiry to Kincaid's search for her murderer. Among the chief suspects is a defendant in one of the cases and the victim's husband, a prominent surgeon who first reported her missing.

THE OUTSIDE SCOOP

Reclusive author S.E. Hinton (of Outsiders fame) has written a new novel for adults, which Tor will publish this month. Hawke's Harbor is the chilling story of a young man, Jamie Summers. Born out of wedlock and then orphaned, Jamie's rough-and-tumble life has included stints as a smuggler and a gunrunner. There's no danger he can't handle—until his encounter with a mysterious gentleman in a seaside Delaware town sends him into a tailspin.

MORE UPDATES

In July, BQ reported that Nick Hornby's next book would be titled The Blues (Riverhead). We have since been told by the publisher that the novel, scheduled to be released next year, is now tentatively titled A Long Way Down.

We also have news of the next Elvis Cole novel from Robert Crais. Crais suspended work on The Forgotten Man (Doubleday) and all other projects earlier this year to care for his mother in Louisiana. We are told the novel, originally expected to be published in August, is now scheduled for release in February 2005. Keep reading BQ for news and updates.

WINTER TALE

Dear Burning Questions,
Just wondering when Anita Shreve will have a new book. She is my favorite author and I've read all her books. I love BookPage; it's very interesting.

Martha Pope
Harrison Township, Michigan

Author of such popular books as All He Ever Wanted, Sea Glass, The Pilot's Wife and The Weight of Water, Anita Shreve returns next month with Light on Snow (Little, Brown). In the novel, a woman looks back on a winter almost 20 years earlier when she and her father found an abandoned baby in the snow. As one might expect, this event changed their lives and those of the people around them.

Shreve made a stunning literary debut in 1975 when she won an O. Henry Prize. Wary of relying on a fiction career as her sole source of income, the former high school teacher became a journalist instead. It was only after expanding two of her freelance pieces into full-length nonfiction books and publishing her first novel in 1989 that the talented Shreve devoted herself to fiction full-time. It's a move that paid off: she has bestsellers, movie adaptations of two of her books and legions of fans to show for her efforts.