I knew without a doubt that I would love “Fun & Games” (June 2011). I’d already read three other books by Duane Swiercyznski, all action-packed and very twisted in a fun-funny way. “Fun & Games” fit right in with the rest, and satisfied all my expectations. As I expected.

Charlie Hardie, an tough but damaged ex-cop with a lot of personal demons, has spent the last three years house-sitting all around the country. Someone pays him to watch their house while they’re gone, usually a few months, and he spends the time getting drunk, watching classic movies, and basically vegging out. Something happened three years ago that threw him into a deep, deep funk. (Obviously, we’re gonna learn what happened.)

His latest gig takes him to a swank house in the Hollywood foothills. But somebody beat him there–an actress named Lane Madden who, that morning, was nearly killed by a secret guild of assassins known as The Accident People. They conduct their hits like it’s a film production, with everything scripted out and a believable narrative. Very obsessive in that way.

Lane, who escaped and took refuge in this house, initially thinks Hardie is one of Them. But then they find themselves under siege, with a three-person team of The Accident People surrounding the house.

And it goes from there. It’s a little bit madcap, quite unpredictable, always fun. Movie references abound. A perfect melding of plot, characters, and locale.

Out of the blue, Swiercyzynski throws in a brief chapter which he titles “Interlude with Mildly Famous Killers.” We’re now in Barstow, Calif., and the first line reads, “The psychopaths came out of the desert, looking for some breakfast.” They take control of a quickstop, apparently aiming to kill the few people inside. And then we go right back to Charlie and Lane…knowing that, somehow, we’re going to be reunited with those psycopaths, but not having any clue as to how it will happen.

During the course of the book, we learn Lane Madden’s backstory (involving Blonde Viking God) and why she’s being targetted. And, of course, we learn what scarred Charlie Hardie.

I’ve been a fan of Swiercyznski for several years, since reading “Severance Package,” a very unique book set almost entirely in a claustrophic office suite and involving some kind of government killers who are being decommissioned. Later I read “The Wheelman,” and more recently, the quirky “The Blonde.” Nobody creates plots and premises like Swiercyznski. He’s a one-of-a-kind.

“Fun & Games” is entirely in that vein, except that it’s book one of a planned trilogy. There comes a point, a ways from the end, where I go, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.” Then the book ends with another surprise, and we’re all set up for the next book, which is called “Hell and Gone.” It’s available now, published in October 2011. I’m not sure I can wait very long.

“Legend” rocks. Plain and simple. Couldn’t stop reading, and didn’t want it to end.

The setting is a dystopian society in the western United States, called the Republic. Something happened–war? plague? natural disaster? simple economic collapse?–to turn Los Angeles into a wasteland of sorts. There’s a post-apocalyptic feel to it. Much of the population lives in poverty, is besieged by an ever-mutating plague, and is subject to an authoritarian government whose leader is now in his 44th year in power. The Republic is at war with the Colonies (the eastern US), and a rebel group called the Patriots battles the Republic from within.

“Legend,” published in November 2011, is told first-person, in alternating chapters, by two 15-year-olds, June and Day. Their lot in life is totally different. June aced the Trials, which every 10-year-old must endure, a way the Republic weeds out the weak. She’s a prodigy from a well-off family who fully believes in the righteousness of the Republic, and intends to be its premier soldier.

Day, on the other hand, was born in poverty. But he’s a different kind of prodigy, a master criminal, Number One on the Republic’s Most Wanted list. He navigates the devastated world with Tess, a 13-year-old girl he rescued, always keeping a low profile and doing what he can to survive. His main priority is watching out for the remnants of his family–mother, and two brothers, one of whom is very sick. The Republic doesn’t know Day’s identity, so they aren’t aware of his family, and Day wants to keep it that way.

Day is nearly captured while trying to steal medicine from a hospital. In the process, a soldier named Metias–the brother of June–is killed. June is unleashed to find Day, and she launches into the mission with vengeance front and center.

In many dystopian novels, the central character believes in the rightness of the society, but doubts arise and eventually, the protagonist turns against the society. Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” is a famous example. “Matched,” by Ally Condie, is a more recent example. “Legend” is another.

The reader knows, from the beginning (and from the promotional blurbs) that June and Day will run into each other, and that by the end of the book, enlightenment will come to June. That all happens. But how it all happens, and what happens in between–well, it’s a fabulous ride.

Marie Lu, before going fulltime as a writer, was art director for a video game company. She lives in Los Angeles. Lu got the idea for “Legend” after watching “Les Miserables” and imagining how that basic story–a master detective pursuing a notorious but good criminal–would play out in a contemporary setting.

“Legend,” though definitely juvenile fiction, is best suited for older teens. Bad things happen to people, cold-blooded things. It’s not graphic, but still.

“Legend” provides an interesting and believable world, a superb plot, an engaging structure (the alternating chapters), and well-drawn protagonists with plenty of depth. I eagerly await Book Two.

James Dashner wrote the very popular young adult “Maze Runner Trilogy.” It starts with a book published in 2009 called “The Maze Runner,” and concludes with the 2011 book “The Death Cure.”

“The Maze Runner” begins with a boy named Thomas–our central character–rising in a box and emerging in a huge open area called The Glade, populated by a group of about 60 other teenage boys. Like the other boys, Thomas’s memories have been wiped.

The Glade, it turns out, is the center of a huge maze. Outside the glade, in the corridors of the maze, hybrid animal/machine creatures called the Grievers keep everyone terrified. A small handful of boys, called runners, spend their days running through the maze and mapping it out. They know there’s a solution, but after a couple years of effort, they’ve not been able to find one. Meanwhile, boys die–often at the hands of the Grievers–and a new boy arrives, like Thomas, every month. Along with a weekly selection of supplies from the unknown maze creators.

Thomas becomes a runner, and a leader. Then one day the next new arrival comes–and it’s a girl, named Teresa. And Thomas and Teresa are able to communicate with each other telepathically. It’s clear that they knew each other before arriving in the Glad, but they can’t remember anything about it.

So anyway, that’s the situation. They need to figure out the puzzle of the maze without getting killed by the ferocious Grievers.

“The Scorch Trials” finds the group out of the maze, in a world where solar flares have killed a huge portion of the world population and left the planet hot, very hot. Scorched. Plus, a plague called The Flare infects most people, gradually turning them crazy. The boys are released into this world for a new set of test–yes, the maze was a tests–and it’s gotten more demanding.

I liked “The Maze Runner” quite a bit, even though not much was explained–who the creators are, what they hope to accomplish, etc. I expected more to be revealed in “The Scorch Trials,” but was disappointed. Instead, “The Scorch Trials” makes things even more confusing, raising even more questions about what the purpose could possibly be. It also brings into play a group of teenage girls who emerged from their own maze.

So now, that leaves “The Death Cure,” the third book, which would explain everything…right?

Not necessarily. I read some reader reviews, and too many of them expressed disappointment–that the third book was the worst of the three, moved slowly, and didn’t answer the questions generated in the previous two books. So I decided against investing any more of my Christmas B&N Gift Certificate in this series. I decided I was just going to be disappointed, that James Dashner had a keen imagination but hadn’t really planned out where he was going in advance. I decided to take a pass. I can live without knowing what happens to Thomas & Company.

Catching up on some more books I read late in the year.

Bad Blood, by John Sanford (2010).
As I’ve written before, I much prefer Sanford’s Virgil Flowers series to his signature Lucas Davenport “Prey” books. Flowers is a much more interesting character than Davenport (who is actually Flowers’ boss). This fourth entry begins with a 19-year-old football star bludgeoning a coworker, and then he’s found hanging in his cell. A deputy is suspected of killing the boy, but that deputy is then murdered. As Flowers and the lady sheriff investigate, clues point to a girl murdered a year before, and to a secretive religious community where lots of bad things seem to happen. The book ends with a doozy of a shoot-out, and a startling act of vengeance. Yes, I think this is the best Flowers book.

Cross Fire, by James Patterson (2010)
I read Cross Fire in one day, on the plane back from California in early November. Patterson’s style–the short chapters, the color-sparse writing, the unrelenting pace–is well-suited for travel reading. This book brings back serial killer Kyle Craig, who, after extensive plastic surgery, assumes the identity of an FBI agent and ends up working with a clueless Alex Cross to solve a series of sniper killings (the victims being corrupt politicians). Realistically, it’s a bit of a leap, but I willingly suspended my skepticism and enjoyed the ride. The ending seemed a bit weak, yet satisfying. The Alex Cross books rarely disappoint (Cross Country being an exception), and this one certainly didn’t. Not one of his best, but an average Alex Cross book is still a lot better than most other books in this genre.

A Cure for Night, published in 2008 under the Black Lizard imprint, was an intriguing book, and an admirable debut novel by Justin Peacock. It’s a murder mystery told first-person by a public defender named Joel Deveraux, who worked for a high-flying law firm before heroin got him fired. Now he’s defending common criminals in Brooklyn, New York.

He gets assigned to help Myra Goldstein, a tough, street-smart public defender, with a murder case. A black man, a pot dealer, has been accused of shooting two men–killing a white Jewish college student, and wounding another drug dealer. Because it involves a white man gunned down in the projects, the case is drawing some attention.

Joel and Myra go about their business, talking to the various witnesses and other people involved, building a case to defend their client. There are no big themes–no racial issues, no cover-up by powerful people, no government conspiracy, no Mafia figures lurking in the background. It’s just a straightforward, fairly pedestrian procedural. As I progressed through the book, I kept waiting for a Big Theme to emerge, something to justify the book’s existence and my continued investment of time in reading it. Yet, I was engrossed.

So what kept my rapt attention? Three things.

1. Well-drawn characters, particularly Joel and Myra. Joel’s backstory, including his occasional contacts with a friend back at his previous law firm, are quite interesting.
2. The relationship between Joel and Myra. It was fun watching these very different people work together. Myra knows that Joel came from a big-money law firm, but doens’t know about his drug history.
3. The glimpses into the criminal justice system. I learned a lot about how things work in a big-city public defender’s office. It can be messy and ambiguous and infuriating. The known guilty can go unpunished, and the innocent can get a raw deal. Sometimes things are exactly as they appear, sometimes not, but it’s hard to tell the difference.

The book’s title comes from this exchange between Joel and Myra:

Myra: “That’s what the criminal law is: it’s how the day tries to correct the night’s mistakes. Most of my cases, people have done something they never would’ve dreamed of doing in broad daylight.”

“What does that make us?” I said. “The night’s janitors?”

“We’re absolutely that,” Myra said, sipping her cosmo. “What else do we do but clean up after it? That’s why we’ll never run out of work. Not unless someone invents a cure for night.”

The book ended on a very satisfying note, and though the resolution should have been obvious, it took me by surprise.