FICTION

How to Sell

by Clancy Martin;

Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

296 pages ($24)

Bobby Clark, the hero of Clancy Martin’s “How to Sell,” is a born thief. And not at all ashamed of it. Or, perhaps, aware of it. He introduces himself with the charming story of stealing his mother’s wedding ring; his lingering regret is that the pawnshop ripped him off. He’s a bit of a sociopath, our Bobby, part of a great literary tradition that includes Duddy Kravitz and Studs Lonigan, characters who are hard to like, and equally hard to hate, largely because they’re such good salesmen. Which is something that the author knows all about.

Bobby is car-crash fascinating. But what really sucks the reader into the clockworks of Martin’s uneven, unreliable but very readable debut novel is the author’s background in high-end jewelry.

At Forth Worth Deluxe Diamond Exchange, where his equally conscienceless brother Jim has brought him aboard, Bobby isn’t even a salesman yet, but he instinctively approaches a wealthy Texan the way a hyena would approach a bleeding wildebeest. He makes the sale.

Martin’s story might be called coming-of-age, although Bobby doesn’t seem transformed by the sales, drugs, drink and sex—or by the barely legal antics perpetrated against customers with too much money. Martin creates a voracious cast of retail animals, the women being the most interesting, if almost uniformly mendacious.

—Newsday

CHILDREN’S

Henry’s Night inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, written by D. B. Johnson and Linda Michelin, illustrated by D. B. Johnson, Houghton Mifflin ($16) Ages 4 and up.

This is the fifth book of the wonderful picture book series inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” and portraying Thoreau as a bear. It’s the first to be co-written by Michelin, wife of author/illustrator Johnson. Johnson’s trademark angular illustrations have a wonderful luminous glow here, capturing the magic of Thoreau’s nighttime strolls in the woods, with fireflies twinkling, the moonlight glinting off a glass jar, the shadowy hulk of a cow in the pasture, as Henry searches for the night bird he hears calling to him.

While this does not have the whimsical humor of “Henry Hikes to Fitchburg” or “Henry Builds a Cabin,” it beautifully evokes through poetry Thoreau’s love for the simple pleasures of the natural world.

—Jean Westmoore

AUDIO BOOK

Audio. Unabridged. 9 CDs, 10 a hours. $34.98. (In print: Center Street, 416 pages, $24.99)

“BoneMan’s Daughters” is the most ambitious—and most violent— of the more than 20 novels Dekker has written since 2000, with a plot that piles on the mayhem but neglects to create nuanced characters.

At the heart are two men—one who might be considered a hero and the other who definitely is a villain –both of whom are insane.

Ryan Evans is a military intelligence officer whose mind snapped during intense torture during his last tour of Iraq. Now back home, he wants to reconnect with his estranged wife and daughter. The other man is a serial killer who preys on young women, seeking a “daughter.”

Both men filter the world through a prism of love and hate; they see each person’s actions as both betrayal and acceptance.

Robert Petkoff (“Law&Order,” “Spamalot”) lends a wonderfully creepy narration.