Not what I expected. Valerie Martin's Trespass begins with such ominous tension and barely controlled violence it seems it will be a coolly-controlled literary thriller, something akin to Patricia Highsmith. The college son of an American couple -- the dad's a historian, the mom's a book illustrator working on a new edition of Wuthering Heights -- brings home his chillly new girlfriend, a beautiful Croatian. Mom vehemently disapproves, and her suspicions rocket into hatred when the young woman becomes pregnant and the two get married. Then there's the armed poacher wandering around shooting rabbits, a poacher the mother has angrily ordered off their land. Behind all this is Bush's duplicitous run-up to the Iraq War, and you can see the many ways the title plays out. But Trespass pivots in unexpected, perhaps too convenient ways. If the ending is too peaceful for what preceded it, Martin is nonetheless such a sharp, gripping writer, the novel captivated me.