Library Journal

Brom. Krampus: The Yule Lord. Morrow. Nov. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780062095657. $27.99. FANTASY
One Christmas Eve in Boone County, WV, a songwriter manqué named Jesse intervenes when he sees men in black attacking a white-bearded gent in a sleigh. Yes, it’s Santa, but he’s the bad guy here—and that’s Krampus’s bag left at the scene. According to Krampus, an age-old trickster demon who punishes wrongdoing, Santa locked him up and stole his magic 500 years ago. Now he’s free and wants his magic back—along with the holiday Santa so rudely usurped. Illustrator/author Brom’s big hit, The Child Thief, went through four printings; fans will be looking for this one. With a 40,000-copy first printing, plus 35 black-and-white illustrations and eight pages of color.

Carr, Caleb. The Legend of Broken. Random. Nov. 2012. 688p. ISBN 9781400062836. $27; eISBN 9780812994087. HISTORICAL
Back in 1994, Carr landed like a meteorite with The Alienist, which has sold over two million copies in all formats to date. Subsequent titles, also big sellers—though nowhere near as big as The Alienist—ricocheted from Victorian England to 2023. Here Carr goes way back in time to the medieval era, where a fortress may fall to the roiling invaders without or to undermining forces within. Evidently lots of juicy characters, e.g., a noble warrior and a scientist condemned for sorcery. Will this outsell The Alienist? We’ll see.

Chiaverini, Jennifer. The Giving Quilt: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel. Dutton. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780525953609. $25.95. POP FICTION
Post-Thanksgiving at Elm Creek Manor, aspiring quilters are enjoying a special winter session of quilt camp. Their aim? To create warm, colorful quilts for Project Linus, a real-life charity Chiaverini supports that gives handmade quilts and blankets to needy children. Not a dry eye after finishing this book; with a reading group guide and eight-city tour.

Engelmann, Karen. The Stockholm Octave. Ecco: HarperCollins. Nov. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780061995347. $26.99. LITERARY HISTORICAL
Engelmann sets her debut novel in 1790s Stockholm—the city’s Golden Age, though with our spare knowledge of Swedish history, as Francine du Plessix Gray points out, we wouldn’t know much about it—and invents a card game called Octave that drives the action. When the fortune-telling Mrs. Sophia Sparrow foresees a golden future for smug bureaucrat Emil Larsson, she lays an Octave for him so that he can find the eight people who will help him realize that vision. Soon, however, Larsson realizes that his search is tied up with the fate of his country, which is verging on chaos. Historical fiction with heft—and some hefty buzz; there’s a 50,000-copy first printing, and rights have been sold to ten countries.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds. Pantheon. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780307907332. $24.95; eISBN 9780307907349. MYSTERY
Boasting more than one million copies in print, the Isabel Dalhousie series is right up there in popularity with McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. In this ninth entry, a Scottish landowner robbed of a Nicolas Poussin painting slated for the Scottish National Gallery asks Isabel’s help in dealing with the thieves, who have approached him privately. Just who are they, and does the hapless victim actually know them? With a reading group guide and a tour that will include Atlanta, Boston, Mobile, and New York, plus locales in Vermont and Canada.

Mayle, Peter. The Marseille Caper. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780307594198. $24. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. MYSTERY
Mayle introduced charming, roguish sleuth Sam Levitt in The Vintage Caper, which has sold nearly 100,000 copies in hardcover, paperback, and ebook. (And he didn’t go on tour to plump for it, as the publisher hastens to point out; his tour for this second in the series is expected to push up the numbers.) Sam is happily ensconced in Los Angeles with charming Elena Morales when rich Francis Reboul calls him back to Marseille. Alas, helping out Francis puts Sam in the midst of a major real estate hustle, with the danger escalating as the battle over Marseille’s valuable waterfront heats up. Mayle’s tour will hit Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Munro, Alice. Dear Life: Stories. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780307596888. $26.95; eISBN 9780307961044. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. SHORT STORIES
The highly admired Munro has won virtually every award imaginable (e.g., three Governor General’s Literary Awards and the Man Booker International Prize) and also sells books; her last title, Too Much Happiness, sold nearly 133,000 copies. The stories in her new collection, which revisits the towns and countryside around Lake Huron, highlight key moments when one’s life changes forever. Don’t miss.

Pullman, Philip. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version. Viking. Nov. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780670024971. $27.95. FAIRY TALES
Yes, it’s been 200 years since the publication of the first volume of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Children’s and Household Tales, and we’ll be seeing celebrations. Norton is reissuing an update of Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Brothers Grimm, and now Pullman has jumped in with his own versions of 50 of the immortal tales, from perennials like “Cinderella” to less familiar gems like “Briar-Rose.” The dark edginess of Pullman’s own work (like the famed Dark Materials trilogy) seems a good match for the Grimm tone of these stories.

Schutt, Christine. Prosperous Friends. Grove. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780802120380. $24. LITERARY
National Book Award finalist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and two-time O. Henry Prize winner, Schutt is a writer’s writer whose elegant prose seems chiseled out of diamonds. Here, golden boy Ned Bourne and his wife, Isabel, seek fulfillment of their artistic promise by traveling to London, New York, and Maine but are less successful in managing their emotional and sexual lives. Understanding comes when they meet older painter Clive Harris and his poet wife, Dinah. With a reading group guide; for discriminating folks.

Sussman, Paul. The Labyrinth of Osiris. Atlantic Monthly. Nov. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780802120410. $25. THRILLER
With Sussman’s The Last Secret of the Temple and The Lost Army of Cambyses having each sold over a million copies worldwide, you can bet that readers will be interested in this next work. Det. Arieh Ben-Roi is stumped by the murder of crusading Israeli journalist Rivka Kleinberg, found dead in a Jerusalem cathedral (of all places). So for help he turns to long-time buddy Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police. Kleinberg had been digging into the death of a British Egyptologist in the 1930s, which might provide some clues. Fun.

Erdrich, Louise. The Round House. Harper: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780062065247. $26.99; eISBN 9780062065261. lrg. prnt. LITERARY FICTION
Erdrich continues the trilogy begun with The Plague of Doves—not to mention her luscious, long-standing oeuvre—with the story of an Ojibwe woman named Geraldine Coutts who is ruthlessly attacked one summer morning in 1988. Because she refuses to speak about the event, instead retreating to her bed, her husband, Bazil, and their 13-year-old son, Joe, try to answer the most basic questions: Was the attacker Indian or white? Did the attack occur on the reservation or on state land (the state being North Dakota)? Frustrated with their ineffectual efforts, Joe rounds up three friends and hunts for the truth himself. Erdrich is such a natural that one almost forgets how good she is; with a 100,000-copy first printing and a seven-city tour to Boston, Minneapolis, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Helprin, Mark. In Sunlight and in Shadow. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 720p. ISBN 9780547819235. $28. LITERARY FICTION
Home from the war and basking in the bright lights of 1947 New York, wealthy Harry Copeland encounters heiress and aspiring actress Catherine Thomas Hale on the Staten Island ferry, and a great passion is born. Alas, Catherine is engaged to a much older man, but she and Harry pursue a romance against the backdrop of Broadway theaters and Long Island mansions, with financiers and gangsters among the walk-on players in this grand pageant from the author of A Soldier of the Great War. What I’ve read so far is glorious and golden, truly like reentering another world where another sensibility prevails and even the sunlight and shadow have a different weight; the 100,000-copy first printing seems right.

Lehane, Dennis. Live by Night. Morrow. Oct. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780060004873. $27.99; eISBN 9780062200297. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. HISTORICAL THRILLER
A New York Times best-selling author with multiple awards to his name, Lehane writes vividly enough to have seen three books turned into movies (e.g., Shutter Island). Not surprisingly, the promotion for his latest, set in Roaring Twenties Boston, Florida, and Cuba, brings up HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Youngest son of an upright Boston police sergeant, Joe Coughlin opts for the dark side, working his way to the top of organized crime as he enjoys the money, the thrills, and the femmes fatales but setting himself up, inevitably, for betrayal and revenge. With a one-day laydown on October 2 and a 400,000-copy first printing; hard not to imagine this one triumphing, as long as readers like Lehane in hot-jazz historical mode.

Wolfe, Tom. Back to Blood. Little, Brown. Oct. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9780316036313. $30; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. LITERARY FICTION
About every eight to ten years since the 1987 publication of Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe writes a novel summing up America’s zeitgeist. This wide-lens view of Miami’s Biscayne Bay sounds no different. Here we meet the Cuban mayor and black police chief, the ambitious young journalist (a Wolfe in character’s clothing?) and a light-skinned Creole from Haiti (whose darker brother preens like a gangster), the billionaire porn addict and the artists at the Miami Arts Basel Fair, the spectators at the regatta and the former New Yorkers at an “Active Adult” condo—not to mention some suspicious-looking Russians. What are they up to? You must read this book to find out.

Egan, Timothy. Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780618969029. $28. BIOGRAPHY
Curtis was a famed photographer and outdoorsman when in 1900 he became determined to chronicle Native American culture before it vanished entirely. He worked mightily to photograph more than 80 tribes—it took six years to persuade the Hopi to let him see their Snake Dance—and eventually produced 20 volumes. Even as he became a fierce advocate of the people captured by his lens, his family life and reputation splintered, and he died penniless. (Marianne Wiggins’s exquisite novel, The Shadow Catcher, captures the turmoil of his life and would make a great companion read.) From Egan, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and National Book Award winner for The Worst Hard Time; with a 75,000-copy first printing and a ten-city tour to New York, Boston, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Denver, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Portland, and Seattle.

Gompertz, Will. What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of One Hundred Years of Modern Art. Dutton. Oct. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780525952671. $27.95. FINE ARTS
Few of us would have the nerve to do a stand-up show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. But BBC arts editor Gompertz does, appearing there in 2009 and, in a one-man piece called Double Art History, styling himself as a substitute art teacher explaining modern art. That show, a sell-out, bodes well for his new book, which covers the artists, movements, and signal works of modern art while asking some unpretentious questions, e.g., why do we instinctively love or hate it. Former director of Tate Media (as in the wonderful Tate Britain and its wild sister, the Tate Modern) and named one of the world’s top 50 creative thinkers by Creativity magazine, Gompertz apparently has an eye for the telling anecdote. A great art history lesson; New Yorkers, note that he’s bringing his show to you.

Cyrus, Billy Ray. Hillbilly Heart.  New Harvest: Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780547992655. $25. MEMOIR
Forget Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) and her screen ups and downs. Here’s a reminder that her dad broke out as a country singer and songwriter with “Achy Breaky Heart” and sold over 20 million copies of the album Some Gave All—the best-selling debut album to date of a solo male artist—before going on to a varied career in music and film. Here he writes a story of music, faith, and his travails once he and his family hit Hollywood. A ten- to 15-city tour featuring a new song, “Hillbilly Heart,” will help push this book; the 150,000-copy first printing suggests big-audience expectations.

Norman, Philip. Mick Jagger. Ecco: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 576p. ISBN 9780061944857 $34.99. BIOGRAPHY
Evidently, Jagger has proclaimed that he will never write a memoir, so we’ll have to depend on once-removed reporting from folks like Norman, author of the best-selling John Lennon: The Life. Norman interviewed many Jagger intimates, including some who have never spoken for the record, and promises to offer a larger, more complex picture of the star. We’ll see, but the book will surely be buzzing throughout 2012, the Stones’s 50th anniversary year. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Rogers, Kenny. Luck or Something Like It. Morrow. Oct. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780062071811. $27.99; eISBN 9780062071606. CD: Harper Audio. MEMOIR
The numbers certainly add up: In his 52-year career, pop/country singer Rogers has recorded more than 65 albums (so many it’s hard to count?), including one Diamond, 19 Platinums, and 31 Golds; he’s sold more than 120 million records worldwide and has nearly 250,000 fans on Facebook. His memoir will obviously touch on a lot of music making, plus those whose music making has touched him, from Ray Charles to Dolly Parton. And he’ll be promoting on his annual Christmas & Hits Tour.

Taylor, John. In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran. Dutton. Oct. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780525958000. $26.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. MEMOIR
Founded in Birmingham, England, in the late 1970s by bassist Taylor and Nick Rhodes, Duran Duran went on to define pop music in the 1980s; their vibrant music videos, seen repeatedly on the newly launched MTV, pushed them into the stardust. Taylor offers an account of the band’s music making (the history gets complicated) and his battles with his personal demons, cocaine and alcohol, as he tried to fathom it all. Hey, the band has sold 80 million records, and recent reviews of their reportedly sold-out concerts have a “they’ve-still-got-it” ring. So there’s an audience.

Townshend, Pete. Who I Am: A Memoir. Harper: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9780062127242. $29.99; eISBN 9780062127266. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. MEMOIR
Townshend has reportedly been working on this memoir for a decade—without the help of a ghostwriter. (It says something to see that fact emphasized.) Here he is as a child, raised by a mentally incapacitated grandmother as his parents led an early version of countercultural life; an adolescent, obsessed with music and founding the forerunner of the Who with buddy Roger Daltrey; and a full-fledged rock star wrestling (as rock stars do) with drugs, sex, fame, fortune, and notoriety. With a one-day laydown on October 8 and a 400,000-copy first printing; line up for author appearances in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Young, Neil. Waging Heavy Peace. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780399159466. $30. MEMOIR
Canadian-born singer/songwriter Young has successfully explored so many different musical styles in his solo and collaborative work that his career could serve as a map of rock music in the last 50 years. Not every musician could have moved so silkily from the gentler sounds of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, & Nash to the hard-driving rock of Crazy Horse to experimentation that has led to Young’s being dubbed the godfather of grunge. A noncompromiser and an active environmentalist, too; here’s his story.

Dean, Debra. The Mirrored World. Harper: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780061231452. $25.99; lrg. prnt. HISTORICAL
Author of the affecting The Madonnas of Leningrad, an ALA Notable Book and a No. 1 BookSense Pick, Dean returns to her favorite city but in an earlier era. In 1700s St. Petersburg, fervent daydreamer Xenia is happily married to Andrei, but when tragedy strikes she withdraws from friends and family to dedicate herself to the poor, eventually vanishing—into a “mirrored world”? Sounds like a Russian novel indeed! With a 75,000-copy first printing and a reading group guide; good for book groups.

Follett, Ken. Winter of the World. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 1008p. ISBN 9780525952923. $36. HISTORICAL
In 2010, Follett launched “The Century Trilogy” with the No. 1 New York Times best seller, Fall of Giants, which traced the lives of five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—through the early years of the 20th century. Encompassing World War I and the Russian Revolution, that lusciously detailed 1000-pager did daunt a few readers. But most will be back for this follow-up (just as big), featuring the same families but moving them along to the rise of the Third Reich and World War II.

Harman, Patricia. The Midwife of Hope River. Morrow. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062198891. pap. $14.99. HISTORICAL
A practicing midwife who has authored two memoirs, The Blue Cotton Gown and Arms Wide Open—both small-press publications that found an appreciative audience—Harman turns to fiction with a heroine appropriately named Patience Murphy. Patience, a midwife just getting started in 1930s Appalachia, willingly takes on hard-luck cases even as she carefully guards her own secrets. The 75,000-copy first printing, five-city tour (Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston, WV, Knoxville, and Nashville), and reading group guide bespeak hope for this book; watch closely, especially in Appalachia.

Kadrey, Richard. Devil Said Bang. Harper Voyageur: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780062094575. $24.99. FANTASY
If you’ve been following the Sandman Slim novels (Amazon Top Tenner Kill the Dead; Sandman Slim, among BN.com’s best paranormal fantasies of the decade; and Indie Next Pick Aloha from Hell), you’ll know that James Starker, aka Sandman Slim, managed to break out of hell to revenge his girlfriend’s murder and has since done time in a very unlovely Los Angeles. Aloha sent him back to Hell, where he’s now the new Lucifer, ready for another breakout and with everyone in Heaven and Hell lining up to take shots at him. When Cory Doctorow calls this movie-bound series “wryer-than-wry and violenter-than-violent,” you know the audience. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Oates, Joyce Carol. Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780062195692. $24.99.
SHORT STORIES
Deluxe author Oates offers a collection of 11 previously uncollected stories, whose borderland scenarios range from a well-off wife’s eloping with a spotted hyena to visitors surprised by what they discover at a maximum security prison. The title story is most significant, however, as it tracks the friendship between Elizabeth Short, famously known as the Black Dahlia, the victim of a markedly brutal murder in 1940s Los Angeles that remains unsolved, and her roommate, Norma Jeane Baker—who of course became Marilyn Monroe. The 25,000-copy first printing seems a bit low for this master; as Monroe fever hits, starting in August, this could be part of the mix.

Santo, Courtney Miller. The Roots of the Olive Tree. Morrow. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062130518. $24.99; eISBN 9780062130532. lrg. prnt. POP FICTION
Multigenerational sagas featuring indomitable women are the stuff of contemporary fiction, but this debut is noteworthy because it represents a full five generations, still living together in a house surrounded by an olive grove in Sacramento Valley. Family matriarch Anna is in fact 112, and great-great-granddaughter Erin has just returned home pregnant after singing opera for two years; now a geneticist wants to study all the women to determine the secret of the family’s longevity. But as Anna worries, that might mean revealing secrets about the family’s origins that she’s hidden for over a century. One of those big-push debuts with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Thilliez, Franck. Syndrome E. Viking. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780670025787. $26.95. THRILLER
Subliminal images packed into a little-known film from the 1950s are so truly horrifying that a friend of Det. Lucie Hennebelle has gone blind after watching it. Meanwhile, Inspector Franck Sharko is investigating five murders that seem to be related to the film. As terror escalates worldwide, it appears that in its early stages neuroscience was used not for good but for evil. Trust the French to go for a thoughty thriller; this one was a big best seller in France, with rights sold to 11 countries.

Tropper, Jonathan. One Last Thing Before I Go. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780525952367. $26.95; CD: Penguin Audio. POP FICTION
No wonder Silver is feeling slightly desperate; his ex-wife is about to marry a terrific guy, his Princeton-bound daughter announces that she’s pregnant, and if he doesn’t acquiesce to an operation, he will soon drop dead. Having broken out in 2009 with This Is Where I Leave You, a New York Times best seller, Tropper returns with another darkly funny, queasily heartwarming tale.

Annan, Kofi. Interventions: A Life in War and Peace. Sept. 2012. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). NAp. ISBN 9781594204203. $36. MEMOIR/CURRENT EVENTS
Few memoirs coming out this year will be as interesting and as important as this one by Annan, seventh Secretary-General of the UN from January 1997 to December 2006 and a corecipient (with the UN itself) of the Nobel Peace Prize for having founded the Global AIDS and Health Fund. Check in on how the world turned during his time in office.

Bar-Zohar, Michael & Nissim Mishal. Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062123404. $26.99; eISBN 9780062123442. HISTORY
Official biographer of David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres, Bar-Zohar joins with leading Israeli TV personality Mishal to document the history of Israel’s crack intelligence service, focusing on high-profile cases ranging from Eichmann’s apprehension to the killing of important Iranian nuclear scientists—which makes the book particularly relevant. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Bawer, Bruce. Children of the Revolution: How Identity Studies Have Destroyed American Higher Education. Broadside: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780061807374. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097064. HISTORY/EDUCATION
Since Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within was a New York Times best seller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and his Stealing Jesus a PW Best Book of the Year, it’s worth paying attention to his latest, a critique of how identity politics have shaped the academy in the last four decades. Not everyone will agree with Bawer that Chicano, African American, and Women’s Studies courses are exercises strictly in power struggle and victimhood that have gotten in the way of objective reasoning, but then listening to all sides of the argument is exactly what thoughtful readers should do. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Gitlin, Todd. Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street. It: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9780062200921. pap. $10. CURRENT EVENTS
Wall Street may not be occupied right now, but the Occupy Wall Street movement has changed our way of thinking; we all know what that “99 percent” means. Arguing that the movement has been misrepresented by both the Left and the Right, Gitlin—author, Columbia journalism/sociology professor, and former president of Students for a Democratic Society—considers the causes and consequences of the movement and where it might go next. Not a huge printing, but right for the right readers; note the 99 percent–friendly paperback price.

Greenberg, Andy. This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim To Free the World’s Information. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780525953203. $26.95. TECHNOLOGY/CURRENT EVENTS
In the Sixties we marched in the streets. Now many young men and women fed up with the government, the military, and the corporations slip into silent whistleblower mode, anonymously uploading institutional secrets that they feel should be exposed. Think WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and OpenLeaks, and think about the long-term impact, as Forbes reporter Greenberg has us do here.

Johnson, Joyce. The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac. Viking. Sept. 2012. 512p. ISBN 9780670025107. $32.95. BIOGRAPHY
Nine months before On the Road was published, aspiring novelist Johnson met Jack Kerouac on a blind date set up by Allen Ginsberg. Minor Characters, her National Book Critics Circle Award winner, detailed their relationship. Here Johnson looks at Kerouac the young artist, showing that his French Canadian background, which left him suspended between two languages and two cultures, deeply influenced his work. For literati everywhere.

Lofgren, Mike. The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted. Viking. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780670026265. $24.95. CURRENT EVENTS
Lofgren, a Republican who worked as a Congressional staffer for 28 years—the last 16 as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees—made news in September 2011 when he angrily quit over the debt ceiling crisis. Critical though he is of the tired Democrats, he saves his real bashing for the Republicans, whom he called lunatics in a piece he subsequently wrote for Truthout. That piece got so many hits so fast that the site crashed; reading the book might be just as tumultuous an experience.

McCord, Catherine. Weelicious: Fast, Easy, and Fresh Recipes Your Kids Want To Eat! Morrow Cookbooks. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062078445. $27.50. COOKING
With a new baby and a culinary degree, McCord was well positioned to launch Weelicious.com, which began as a compendium of baby food purees and now fosters family eating that is healthful and tasty and suggests how to teach kids to make smart choices about food. The site gets more than 500,000 hits a day and was among the New York Observer’s Top Ten “Must Read” Websites for Parents, so this should be in demand. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Max, D.T. Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. Viking. Sept. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780670025923. $26.95. BIOGRAPHY
Appearing in The New Yorker a year after David Foster Wallace’s suicide at age 46, Max’s “The Unfinished: David Foster Wallace’s Struggle To Surpass Infinite Jest” really fired up readers. Now Max offers what is less a portrait of the man than of the artist, detailing Wallace’s struggles to become a novelist while circumventing depression and addiction. He also explores Wallace’s powerful impact on American letters—particularly as a symbol of integrity in an increasingly slick world.

Mazower, Mark. Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea, 1815 to the Present. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594203497. $25.95. HISTORY
Having ranged from Duff Cooper Prize winner Salonica City of Ghosts to Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Hitler’s Empire, among many other titles, Oxford-trained historian Mazower—now director of the Center for International History at Columbia University—seems good and ready to discuss world government from the post-Napoleonic era forward. Go for it, history fans.

Mendez, Antonio & Matt Baglio. Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History. Viking. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780670026227. $26.95. Downloadable: Random Audio. HISTORY
In 1979, after Iranian militants stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, creating a hostage situation that lasted 444 days, six Americans escaped. Then a CIA agent, Mendez arranged for their rescue by bringing a bunch of Hollywood directors, producers, and actors to Iran, ostensibly to scout locations for a film they dubbed Argo but in fact to contact the escapees and smuggle them out. A crazy plan, but it worked, and Mendez is sharing the details only now. Yes, a film about the rescue is forthcoming, starring Ben Affleck and releasing in September.

Miller, Carol. Up All Night: My Life and Times in Rock Radio. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780061845246. $24.99. MEMOIR/MUSIC
You bet that there are readers anticipating this memoir by the country’s top female disc jockey, who was raised in a staunchly intellectual Jewish household in Queens, got into progressive rock radio while at the University of Pennsylvania, worked with legends like Cousin Brucie, went all chatty with Paul McCartney and dated Steve Tyler, and eventually made it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, having hugely shaped the business with her distinctive on-air approach. Here she tells her story, revealing her battle with cancer and fears about an unnamed illness that has taken many family members early in life, which gave her a real incentive to accomplish.

Perry, Michael. Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace. Harper: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780061894442. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097798. BIOGRAPHY
Perry recently returned home to a 37-acre farm in New Auburn, WI (see his Population: 485), where he serves on the local rescue service when not commenting for NPR or acting as a contributing editor to Men’s Health. He’s also neighbors with octogenarian Tom Hartwig, who builds his own cannons, runs a shop seemingly “stocked by Rube Goldberg, curated by Hunter Thompson, and rearranged by a small earthquake,” and defies the four-lane interstate that was shoved through his front yard a few decades back. Perry is a good author—2009’s Coop was an Indie best seller and won a bunch of regional awards—and this portrait of an individual is also a welcome portrait of an underrepresented place and lifestyle. So check it out, especially if Perry come to your neighborhood; his driving tour takes him to Iowa City, Des Moines, Chicago, Wichita, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha, Lincoln, and Nashville, as well as Northfield, Stillwater, and Minneapolis, MN, and Madison, Rice, Red Wing, and Milwaukee, WI.

Ricks, Thomas E. The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today. Sept. 2012. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. ISBN 9781594204043. $36. CURRENT EVENTS
Once a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, currently with the Center for a New American Security and a Foreign Policy blogger, Pulitzer Prize winner Ricks has already given us two best-selling books on our recent venture in Iraq, The Gamble and Fiasco. Here he steps back to provide a broader picture of military leadership—and particularly the decline in sound military leadership—since World War II. No doubt sobering.

Silver, Nate. The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594204111. $27.95. SOCIAL SCIENCE
In 2008, Silver created the polling website and blog FiveThirtyEight.com (named for the number of electors in the electoral college), then relaunched the blog with the New York Times two years later. Here he challenges the very idea of making predictions in everything from weather to politics (interesting position for a pollster), so I won’t venture to say how this book will do. But it has a built-in audience.

Simmons, Sylvie. I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061994982. $27.99. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
A music journalist who’s profiled folks like Neil Young and Johnny Cash and recently won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for her liner notes for Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, Simmons conducted more than 100 interviews with friends and musicians (ranging from Judy Collins to, interestingly, Phillip Glass) to craft this portrait of the man who gave us such immortal songs as “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire.” Music lovers of a certain age will want, and since Cohen has just wrapped up a sold-out three-year world tour after a 15-year hiatus, he’ll be on their minds.

Weiss, Luisa. My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes). Viking. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670025381. $26.95. MEMOIR/COOKING
When cookbook editor Weiss launched Thewednesdaychef.com, now an award-winning blog that boasts 100,000 unique visitors per month, it was just the beginning of a dramatic story. As she wrote about cooking her way through a stack of recipes, she was inspired to dump her fiancé, then her job, then her home, leaving New York for Berlin, where she had been partly raised by her Italian mother. Yummy tales, like foraging for plums in an abandoned orchard; even the curmudgeonly might want to head for the kitchen. With an eight-city tour.

White, Kate. Sweet Success: How To Get It, Run with It, Savor It. Harper Business: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062122124. $24.99. BUSINESS
Here’s what White is doing when she’s not at her desk as editor in chief of Cosmopolitan or writing best sellers like the Bailey Weggins mystery series: she’s writing a career guide for women aiming to make it today’s tumultuous business world. To achieve success, says White, you’ve got to “Get It”—that is, take a risk that will land you ahead of the curve, as White did when she put Lady Gaga on Cosmo’s cover—then keep building on what you’ve done and learn to enjoy it (or why bother?). With a 40,000-copy first printing and lots of publicity through social media.

Armstrong, Kelley. Thirteen. Dutton. Aug. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952831. $26.95; CD/Downloadable: Penguin Audio. PARANORMAL THRILLER
Bittersweet news, Otherworld fans: after a dozen books, here’s the grand finale of the series. Savannah Levine has rescued her brother from supernatural medical testing, though he’s not exactly back on his feet, and with supernaturals battling one another—and in danger of exposure to the general population—she’s dredging up all her strength to summon spells that will keep her world intact. You bet that Otherworld familiars Adam, Paige, Lucas, Jaime, and Hope will be making appearances, along with hellhounds, genetically modified werewolves, and other creepy pleasers. This will be big; with a five-city tour and Comic-Con promotion.

Frankel, Laurie. Good-Bye for Now. Doubleday. Aug. 2012. 228p. ISBN 9780385536189. $25.95; eISBN 9780385536196. POP FICTION
Sam Elliot meets love-of-his-life Meredith at the Internet dating company where they both work, then gets fired when a competitor starts getting all the business. To comfort Meredith when her grandmother dies, Sam draws on all of grandma’s emails, Facebook posts, and Skype to create a computer program that simulates one last conversation between her and Meredith. Hence the couple’s new company, RePose, is born. It helps customers to assuage their grief, but it soon presents some sticky problems of its own. Now there’s a fresh premise, and this novel was the talk ofFrankfurt, selling to over 20 territories. Don’t miss out.

Lippman, Laura. Untitled. Morrow. Aug. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061706875. $25.99. THRILLER
Mega-award-winning author Lippman, always a best seller, here offers a standalone novel with a compelling plot: Heloise, a suburban madam, is worried when a man she helped put on death row is released after his sentence is overturned. That the man is her former pimp and the father of her son makes things even worse. The novel is based on a short story, “Scratch a Woman,” taken from Lippman’s 2008 collection Hardly Knew Her and nominated for both an Edgar and an Anthony. Currently, it’s a popular ebook, which should help with promotion. Note the 150,000-copy first printing and the official September 1 pub date; I’m including here because the book goes on sale August 14.

Brown, Jenny with Gretchen Primack. The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals. Avery: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781583334416. $26. MEMOIR/ANIMAL RIGHTS
Having been comforted by her cat when she lost a leg to bone cancer at age ten, Brown grew up enamored of animals and eventually became concerned about those on farms. Soon she quit her job as a film and TV producer to document awful animal abuses in the Texas stockyards; as Brown emphasizes here, agribusiness treats domesticated animals like products, not living creatures. Brown went on to found the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, which has garnered coverage from top venues like the New York Times and Cosmopolitan. Here’s your chance to visit the sanctuary and meet Albie, the three-legged goat, and abandoned Easter duckling Quincy. Go, animals!

Brown, Dale. Tiger’s Claw. Morrow. Aug. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780061990014. $26.99; eISBN 9780062099105. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. FICTION
It’s 2014, and, thanks to a big trade surplus, the Chinese have radically expanded their military presence in the Pacific. Meanwhile, Patrick McLanahan and his Sky Masters have been tasked with renovating the U.S. weapons system, a project that takes them to Guam—and sets off the Chinese. One preemptive strike later, there’s war in the Pacific. Classic Brown for Brown fans; the one-day laydown on August 14 and 125,000-copy first printing says a lot.

de Jonge, Peter. Buried on Avenue B. Harper: HarperCollins. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780061373558. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097125. lrg. prnt. THRILLER
After an elderly man with encroaching Alzheimer’s confesses to his home attendant that as a long-ago junkie and petty thief he killed his partner in crime, police from the NYPD reluctantly dig up the community garden where the body is supposed to be buried. Instead of a dead man, they find the body of a carefully dressed ten-year-old boy clutching a comic book, a CD, plus alcohol and pot. The subsequent case takes tough-minded Det. Darlene O’Hara, last seen in the best-selling Shadows Still Remain, from Tompkins Square to a retirement community on the Gulf of Mexico. This James Patterson coauthor seems to be doing well on his own; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Dunn, Matthew. Sentinel: A Spycatcher Novel. Morrow. Aug. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780062037923. $25.99; eISBN 9780062037961. lrg. prnt. THRILLER
Back after the pointed and scalding The Spycatcher, agent Will Cochrane is on his way to Russia, sent on an impossible mission by the CIA to find an undercover agent who has sent a cryptic message: “He has betrayed us and wants to go to war.” The agent is bleeding to death when Cochrane finds him, but he manages to spit out one last word: “Sentinel.” And now the hunt is on. This former M16 agent gets a 150,000-copy first printing for his second novel; ante up.

Edwards, Selden. The Lost Prince. Dutton. Aug. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952947. $26.95. TIME TRAVEL/HISTORICAL FICTION
In 2008, after decades of labor, Edwards released a first novel called The Little Book that took 1980s rock star Wheeler Burden back to 1897 Vienna. In this sequel, Eleanor Burden has returned to New England from her own thrilling experience in fin de siècle Vienna, which did, however, include losing the love of her life. Even as she awaits what next will drop into her lap, she wrestles with premonitions of the 20th century’s horrors, never mind that Freud himself called her delusional. Some critics had doubts about The Little Book, but many readers were enthusiastic. Entertainment Weekly’s description of The Little Book fits this book, too: “Back to the Future for the intellectual set.”

Fairstein, Linda. Night Watch. Dutton. Jul. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952633. $26.95. CD/downloadable: Penguin Audio. THRILLER
Alexandra Cooper is going to some fancy New York restaurants. But as one might expect of Cooper, the Manhattan prosecutor who serves as protagonist of ITW Silver Bullet Award winner Fairstein’s best-selling series, she’s not going to eat but to uncover the dirty secrets of the rich and powerful beneath the gleaming surface of Gotham’s best watering holes. Readers will be hungry for this; look for the eight- to ten-city tour.

Garwood, Julie. Sweet Talk. Dutton. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780525952862. $26.95. ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
When gorgeous young attorney Olivia MacKenzie wrecks FBI agent Grayson Kincaid’s sting operation, he’s furious and she doesn’t much care; she’s an IRS agent, set to bring down a Ponzi scheme that’s hurt a lot of innocent people. Then she realizes that her efforts have put her in danger and turns to Kincaid for help. Garwood seems unstoppable; get multiples wherever she is popular.

Jance, J.A. Judgment Call: A Brady Novel of Suspense. Morrow. Aug. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061731167. $25.99; eISBN 9780062132383. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. THRILLER
Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady has a problem that crisscrosses the personal and the political. Her daughter, Jenny, has discovered her high school principal murdered. It’s no fun digging into the uncomfortable truths about the man so well known to her daughter, especially when Jenny seems to know more—and understand less—than she’s revealing. The one-day laydown on July 24, 200,000-copy first printing, and ten-city Tour to Albuquerque, Cincinnati, Dayton, Kansas City, Lexington, Phoenix, Seattle, Spokane, Tucson, and Tulsa come as no surprise.

Vincent, Norah. Thy Neighbor. Viking. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670023745. $25.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. FICTION
At 34, Nick Walsh still lives in his Midwest suburban childhood home—though his parents died violently 13 years earlier and he’s been self-medicating since. As he spies on his neighbors, using cameras and microphones he has surreptitiously installed, he begins to understand what happened to his parents. Then he learns that someone is stalking him. This first novel by the author of nonfiction best sellers like Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Year Disguised as a Man sounds at once spooky and thought-provoking and should attract some attention.

White, Stephen. Line of Fire. Dutton. Aug. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780525952527. $26.95. THRILLER
Settling back into his clinical psychology practice, Alan Gregory accepts a patient he finds at once mesmerizing and threatening. Meanwhile, he is alerted to the reopened investigation into the presumed suicide of a woman named J. Winter Brown. He and buddy Sam Purdy accidentally reveal details about their involvement in her death to a manic drug dealer, and soon they are in the investigators’ crosshairs. White wraps up a best-selling series, but not quite yet; this is the first of a two-parter, so steel yourself.

Chertavian, Gerald. A Year Up: Rediscovering America and the Talent Within. Viking. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670023776. $26.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. EDUCATION
Serving as a Big Brother, technology entrepreneur Chertavian realized that the country was defined by an “Opportunity Divide”: lots of disadvantaged youth were eager to work—and to work their way up the ladder—but they needed guidance. So in 2000 he founded Year Up, a program for low-income young adults emphasizing training, mentoring, and internships leading to real jobs; 85 percent of graduates are employed or in college full time within four months of graduation. The mediagenic program currently helps 1300 students in nine cities nationwide. Here’s how it all works; with a nine-city tour and lots of push.

Fontaine, Claire & Mia Fontaine. Have Mother, Will Travel: A Mother and Daughter Discover Themselves, Each Other, and the World. Morrow. Jul. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780061688393. $24.99; eISBN 9780062109637. MEMOIR
Everyone loves finding-oneself travel memoirs, and this one has a particular hook; it follows up Come Back, the best-selling story of Claire Fontaine’s efforts to rescue her daughter, Mia, from drug addiction. A decade later, they are eager to move beyond the roles defined in that book. So they launch a six-month, 16-city, 12-country getting-restarted tour, with adventures that included a passport-eating elephant. A mother-daughter relationship book with some cool settings; a 50,000-copy first printing.

Goldman, Carrie. Bullied: What Every Parent, Teacher, and Kid Needs To Know About Ending the Cycle of Fear. HarperOne: HarperCollins. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062105073 $25.99. PARENTING
After her first-grade daughter, Katie, was roundly bullied for having what was considered a gender-inappropriate Star Wars thermos, Goldman—purveyor of a popular blog on the Chicago Tribune’s online Chicago.now—wrote a post that attracted lots of attention. Katie’s story appeared in hotspots like the front page of CNN.com and Germany’s Der Spiegel, and the hashtag #MayTheForceBeWithKatie got a big rush. Here, Goldman expands her post considerably to offer concrete advice on dealing with bullying, something one in five teens (to move beyond Katie’s age group) say they have experienced in the last year. At 25,000 not the hugest printing on this list, but the issue is in the news.

Levine, Madeline. Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success. Harper: HarperCollins. Aug. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780061824746. $25.99; eISBN 9780062196682. PARENTING
What makes a good parent? For psychologist Levine, whose New York Times best seller, The Price of Privilege, netted more than 125,000 copies in hardcover and paperback, it’s not about raising top-scoring wunderkinder. Instead of pressuring some kids to overachieve while entirely neglecting others, we need to define success in terms of having a sense of purpose and well-being. As the tiger mama debates continue raging, this book should have lots of appeal. With a 75,000-copy first printing and author appearances in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.

Lustig, Andrea Pomerantz. How To Look Expensive: A Beauty Editor’s Secrets to Getting Gorgeous Without Breaking the Bank. Avery: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9781592407231. $22.50. BEAUTY/STYLE
This guide from Glamour beauty sleuth Lustig could just as well have been titled “How To Look Good Inexpensively.” Lustig offers tips from high-priced cosmetic artists, a recipe for deluxe skincare that costs under $20, ideas for getting a really good dye at an inexpensive salon, and more. Since Lustig’s column is featured on Glamour.com, which draws in three million unique visitors a month, this should have readers. And who doesn’t want to be gorgeous?

Montanti, Elissa with Jennifer Haupt. I’ll Stand by You: Changing the World One Child at a Time. Dutton. Aug. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780525952954. $25.95. MEMOIR
Billed as a memoir but more, actually. Fourteen years ago, to overcome her grief after the death of several loved ones, Staten Island lab technician Montanti decided to help collect school supplies for children in Bosnia but discovered they need something different. After helping a child horribly maimed by a landmine, she founded her one-woman organization, the Global Medical Relief Fund, which has since helped bring 150 injured children from war zones in Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere to this country for treatment. Already lots of coverage, including two 60 Minutes segments; this book shows us what can be done.

Solo, Hope with Ann Killion. Solo: A Memoir of Hope. Harper: HarperCollins. Aug. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780062136749. $24.99. MEMOIR
Featured twice on the cover of Sports Illustrated. TV appearances ranging from The Late Show with David Letterman to Dancing with the Stars. Social media queen with 850,000 Facebook fans and 345,000 Twitter followers. Solo may have made her name as the independent-minded goalkeeper for the U.S. women’s national soccer team—she was there for the Olympic gold in 2008—but she’s much more than that. Here’s her story, focusing on her relationship with her father, who taught her to love soccer but disappeared from her life for a time when he was convicted of embezzlement. Given the weight of the story and Solo’s headliner reputation, not to mention comparisons to Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle, the 30,000-copy first printing seems a bit cautious.

Stephenson, Neal. Some Remarks. Morrow. Aug. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062024435. $25.99; eISBN 9780062133618. ESSAYS
Surprise! Not another juicy work of speculative fiction from best-selling award winner Stephenson but a collection of essays he has contributed to magazines, symposiums, websites, and blogs. It will be interesting to see the expansive Stephenson work in a smaller format as he discusses, for instance, genre, Isaac Newton, and Star Wars. With a 75,000-copy first printing and author appearances in Austin, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Diego, and Seattle. Cool.

Ampuero, Roberto. The Neruda Case. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Jul. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781594487439. $26.95. MYSTERY
Chilean-born Ampuero’s series starring private eye Cayetano Brulé are best sellers worldwide, but though the author has been teaching at the University of Iowa since 2000 (having spent time in Cuba, East Germany, West Germany, and Sweden), this is his first publication in English. Upon meeting Neruda at a party in pre-Pinochet Chile, Brulé is asked to solve a mystery troubling the great poet and finds himself traveling far afield (to Cuba, East Berlin…) for that purpose. Not just for mystery fans—or readers of Latin American literature.

Baker, J.I. The Empty Glass. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780399158193. $24.95. THRILLER
Baker, executive editor of Condé Nast Traveler, offers a first novel about a woman who’s starred in a lot of fiction lately: Marilyn Monroe. Maybe it’s the 50th anniversary of her death, coming in August 2012—or maybe she just seems so relevant as both symbol and victim of an outsize celebrity culture. Here, Los Angeles County Deputy Coroner Ben Fitzgerald arrives at the scene of Monroe’s death and finds her diary, which reveals a doomed affair with “The General”; soon he scents a cover-up in the making.

Brookmyre, Christopher. Where the Bodies Are Buried. Atlantic Monthly. Jul. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780802120250. $25; eISBN 9780802194442. THRILLER
A major crime novelist from Scotland, where the really tough guys write, Brookmyre crafts the story of two different cases that eventually collide. As Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod investigates the murder of a small-time heroin dealer (shame on him for sleeping with a drug kingpin’s girlfriend), one-time actress Jasmine Sharp must step up her efforts to learn the ropes at her “Uncle” Jim’s private investigation business when Jim himself disappears. This one’s gritty.

Chen, Pauline A. The Red Chamber. Knopf. Jul. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780307701572. $26.95; CD: Random House Audio. HISTORICAL
In her first adult novel, Chen, who has a doctoral degree in Asian studies from Princeton, imaginatively reworks the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber, set in 18th-century Beijing. At its heart are three women: orphaned Daiyu, who joins her cousins, scheming Xifeng and proper Baochai, in the grand imperial city. Big reading-group pitch and an accent on accessibility.

Claudel, Philippe. The Investigation. Doubleday. Jul. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780385535342. $25. LITERARY
Claudel, who here follows up award winners like Brodeck and By a Slow River (translated into 30 languages) is one French author American readers really seem to like. Here, the Investigator encounters some truly absurd—dare one say Kafkaesque?—situations as he tries to determine what is behind a string of suicides at a huge complex called Enterprise in an unnamed Town. Do keep this one in mind.

Coulter, Catherine. Backfire. Putnam. Jul. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780399157325. $26.95. THRILLER
Here’s Coulter in FBI thriller mode, as tough federal prosecutor Mickey O’Rourke suddenly turns to jelly at the trial of putative serial killers Clive and Cindy Cahill, then gets shot in the back. FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich receive the news at the same time that Savich gets a note saying “You deserve this for what you did.” Go, thriller fans.

Gapper, John. A Fatal Debt. Ballantine. Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780345527899. $26; eISBN 9780345527912. THRILLER
Psychiatrist Ben Cowper reluctantly agrees to treat a disgraced Wall Street biggie at home instead of at the hospital, then rushes to pick up the pieces when someone ends up dead. Gapper is a fiction newcomer but no neophyte; as chief business columnist of the Financial Times, he’s already a high-profile writer with a big blog/Twitter following. Another in the big upsweep of financial thrillers, inspired by these parlous times.

Gardiner, Meg. Ransom River. Dutton. Jul. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780525952855. $25.95. THRILLER
Her career and her love life having dead-ended, Rory Mackenzie reluctantly returns to her hometown of Ransom River, CA. Now a juror on a big-time murder case, she starts recalling disturbing childhood memories about another case, still unsolved—and that could be her undoing. Attention, fans: Gardiner is refreshing herself (and us?) by departing from her Evan Delaney series.

Grazer, Gigi Levangie. The After Wife. Ballantine. Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780345523990. $25; eISBN 9780345524010. CD: Random House Audio. POP FICTION
How does newly widowed Hannah discover that she can talk the dead? She’s standing in the backyard, sobbing over the death of her husband and asking “Why?” when the avocado tree laconically responds, “Why not?” Grazer is responsible for the screenplay Stepmom, plus a bunch of novels, including The Starter Wife, inspiration for the miniseries and then the regular series on the USA Network, which gives you a good feel for her work.

Hill, Gregory. East of Denver. Dutton. Jul. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780525952794. $25.95. POP FICTION
Suddenly caretaker of his senile father and the family farm in eastern Colorado, to which he has just returned, Stacey “Shakespeare” Williams links up with some old high school buddies and hatches a plan to rob the victimizing local bank. Do they really mean to go through with it? Dark comedy with an in-the-news edge; note that debut novelist Hill works for the University of Denver library.

Huston, Nancy. Infrared. Black Cat: Grove Atlantic. Jul. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780802120274. pap. $14; eISBN 9780802194404. LITERARY
Having survived childhood and two bad marriages, cutting-edge photographer Rena Greenblatt finds herself trapped in Florence with her fading father and impossible stepmother, contemplating both Renaissance masterpieces and memories of dark, sensual moments in her past. Several of Canadian author Huston’s 11 novels are major award winners; Prix Femina winner Fault Lines is a personal favorite.

Joyce, Graham. Some Kind of Fairy Tale. Doubleday. Jul. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780385535786. $24.95. FANTASY
A girl named Tara disappears from her small English village, leaving behind a grieving but ultimately resigned family. Then 20 years later she returns—almost completely unchanged. Clearly, the work of a fantasist—Joyce has won both British Fantasy and World Fantasy awards—and comparisons are being made to Keith Donohue’s The Stolen Child and S.J. Waton’s When I Go To Sleep. Note, too, that Joyce’s The Silent Land was a Stephen King Summer Pick in EW—and act accordingly.

Kava, Alex. Fireproof: A Maggie O’Dell Novel. Doubleday. Jul. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780385535519. $24.95. THRILLER
Called in to investigate a series of suspicious fires—the last having left someone dead—special agent Maggie O’Dell is being pursued by a reporter who wants to make her part of the story. Meanwhile, she’s getting the uncomfortable feeling that this arsonist is someone close to home. New York Times best-selling author Kava cops a six-city tour (Houston, Phoenix, Denver, San Diego, San Francisco, and Minneapolis), plus giveaways on GoodReads and LibraryThing.

Lasser, Scott. Say Nice Things About Detroit. Norton. Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780393082999. $25.95. LITERARY
After his divorce and his son’s death, David Halpert seeks solace in a surprising place; he returns to his hometown, Detroit, which he left 25 years ago after graduating from high school. There he contends not only with the ongoing decay of the racially polarized town but the double shooting of an old high school girlfriend and her black half-brother. Evidence that you should consider purchasing: LJ said of Lasser’s 1999 debut, Battle Creek, “All public libraries will want this,” and of his recent The Year That Follows, “Highly recommended.”

Lawson, Mike. House Blood: A Joe DeMarco Thriller. Atlantic Monthly. Jul. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780802119940. $24; eISBN 9780802194541. THRILLER
Big pharma CEO Orson Mulray want to test a miracle drug, but human subjects—and autopsy results—are required. Sweeping that little complication under the table, he ropes in starry-eyed philanthropist Lizzie Warwick, but then her lobbyist in Washington, DC, uncovers the true nature of the plan and gets murdered for his troubles. Two years later, congressional fixer Joe DeMarco picks up the case, and things get really complicated. House Rules (2008) was a No. 1 Kindle best seller, and House Divided (2011) was an LJ best thriller of the year, so House Blood is well positioned.

Lee, Don. The Collective. Norton. Jul. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780393083217. $25.95.  LITERARY
In 1988, aspiring writer Eric Cho bonds with aspiring pianist Jessica Tsai and another writing hopeful, the gargantuanly talented Joshua Yoon, at Macalester College. Later, in Cambridge, MA, they form the 3AC, the Asian American Artists Collective, working their way through questions of love, art, idealism, and racism. Former Ploughshares editor Lee, who won the Sue Kaufman Prize for his first collection, Yellow, and both an Edgar and an American Book Award for Country of Origin, is a cracking good writer.

Mathews, Francine. Jack 1939. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781594487194. $26.95. THRILLER
President Roosevelt wants to send someone to Europe to figure out what Hitler really intends and to prevent German funds meant to ensure Roosevelt’s loss in the 1940 election from reaching America. His choice? John F. Kennedy, the son of America’s ambassador to Britain, who’s traveling the Continent to collect data for his senior thesis. Rumor has it that this is a fun, fast-paced, sexy thriller, and as Mathews was an intelligence analyst for the CIA in the 1990s the atmosphere should be authentic.

Piccirilli, Tom. The Last Kind Words. Bantam. Jun. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780553592481. $26; eISBN 9780553906356. THRILLER
Bram Stoker and International Thriller Awards winner Piccirilli breaks into hardcover with the story of Terrier Rand, who abandons the crime life and his small-time grifter family when brother Collie turns killer and wipes out an entire family and then some. (Yes, Rand family members are all named after dog breeds.) But he returns when Collie claims that he wasn’t responsible for one of those deaths. Lots of buzz and the start of a new series.

Slaughter, Karin. Criminal. Delacorte. Jul. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780345528506. $27; eISBN 9780345528513. THRILLER
Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent would like finally to make his life more than just work. But no such luck with a crime from 1975 suddenly making trouble today. Slaughter can of course be lauded as a No. 1 international best-selling author and ITW Silver Bullet Award winner and the guiding light behind the Save the Libraries campaign. Buy multiples.

Steel, Danielle. Friends Forever. Delacorte. Jul. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780385343213. $28; eISBN 9780345533562.
This starts out YA—two girls and three boys meet and become fast friends at a fancy private school—then goes into classic Steel territory as the friends split up for college and are eventually divided forever by tragedy. Comparisons are being made to another Steel biggie, Sisters.

Suarez, Daniel. Kill Decision. Dutton. Jul. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780525952619. $26.95. THRILLER
What happens when the decision to kill in battle can suddenly be shifted from human to machine? America is under attack by drones programmed to seek out and execute targets, and Special Ops soldier Odin is trying to stop the carnage with the help of Linda McKinney, a scientist whose research on ant societies has been preempted by the unknown enemy to run the marauding drones. Techno-thriller author Suarez goes beyond the New York Times best-selling Daemon to get at some big issues.

Thayer, Nancy. Summer Breeze. Ballantine. Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780345528711. $26; eISBN 9780345533517. POP FICTION
Thayer abandons Nantucket for the Berkshires, where three young women spend a summer recalibrating their lives. Cottage-sitting Natalie is recovering from the breakup blues, Bella has returned home to care for her mom and the family business, and Morgan wants more out of life than mothering. Popular women’s fiction of the extended-best-sellers list type and a good beach, er, weekend-in-the-country read.

Walters, Minette. Innocent Victims: Two Novellas. Mysterious Pr: Grove Atlantic. Jul. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780802126122. $23; eISBN 9780802194466. MYSTERY
In “Chickenfeed,” based on a notorious 1924 murder on an East Sussex chicken farm, Walters explores how Norman Thorne met Elsie, the girlfriend he reputedly killed. In “The Tinder Box,” everyone in town unites against the O’Riordan family when Patrick O’Riordan is accused of murder, though neighbor Siobhhan Lavenham proclaims his innocence. Then secrets emerge that make her start to wonder. Walters is a Gold Dagger and Edgar award winner (among other honors), these two works were both No. 1 best sellers in the UK, and you were wondering whether to purchase?

Warren, Dianne. Juliet in August. Amy Einhorn: Putnam. Jul. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780399157998. $25.95. LITERARY
Juliet, Saskatchewan. It’s at the edge of the Little Snake sand hills, but it’s a small town like any other, with folks quietly getting by as they recognize their limitations or learn to love again. Small-town dwellers and those who enjoy reading about them should identify with everyone and everything, except maybe the camel named Antoinette, lost somewhere in the hills. Winner of Canada’s highly regarded Governor General’s Award and hence well worth watching.

Young, Tom. The Renegades. Putnam. Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780399158469. $25.95. THRILLER
Young follows up The Mullah’s Storm and Silent Enemy (not to mention nearly 4000 hours with the Air National Guard in Iraq and elsewhere) with another thriller drawing on Middle East tensions. Afghan Air Force adviser Lt. Col. Michael Parson and his interpreter, Sgt. Maj. Sophia Gold, are on hand when American troops hurry to deliver aid after an earthquake devastates Afghanistan. A Taliban splinter group called the Black Crescent is making the effort truly hell. Interesting to see where Young’s writing will go as our objectives in the region shift.

Atkins, Ace. The Lost Ones. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780399158766. $25.95. THRILLER
When he’s not continuing the Spenser novels, having been chosen for the honor by the Robert B. Parker Estate, Atkins writes nicely gritty thrillers on his own. This is his second Quinn Colson novel, about a former U.S. Army ranger who’s become sheriff of Tibbelah County, MS. Here Colson is contending with both a nasty case of stolen army guns, which have landed in the laps of a local Mexican drug gang, and an abused child whose situation leads Colson and toughie deputy Lillie Virgil to a bootleg baby racket. Atkins is looking up.

Avallone, Silvia. Swimming to Elba. Viking. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670023585. $25.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. POP FICTION
Childhood friends Anna and Francesca have bloomed as adolescents, and they start to imagine a life beyond sleepy little Piombino, where they live. Maybe it’s time to take the ferry to the resort town of Elba. The friends’ dreams and disappointments might sound like the stuff of YA novels, but as this was runner-up for Italy’s Premio Strega and has been sold to 14 countries, something more must be going on. Watch.

Brown, Eli. Cinnamon and Gunpowder. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780374123666. $26. HISTORICAL
Evocative title, and the plot sounds like a hoot. In 1819, the pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot kills the lord of a booming tea concern but spares his chef, the famous Owen Wedgwood, as long as he manages to serve her an extraordinary meal every Sunday. Soon understandably overwrought Owen has swept away the weevil-infested cornmeal for tea-smoked eel. Brown’s first novel, The Great Days, won the Fabri Prize for Literature, so this isn’t just a divertissement. Check it out.

Conway, James. The Last Trade. Dutton. Jun. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952824. $26.95. THRILLER
With his uncanny sense of the financial future, Drew Havens has helped make the Rising Fund a premier hedge operation—the only one that did not simply survive the mortgage crisis but benefited from it. Now, however, someone is murdering brokers associated with the Fund, starting with Havens’s protégé. The author himself is a pseudonymous hedge-fund insider, so the money details should be correct. Certainly au courant; buy where financial thrillers do well. 

Cussler, Clive & Graham Brown. The Storm. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780399160134. $27.95. CD/downloadable: Penguin Audio. THRILLER
Just as a NUMA research vessel in the Indian Ocean completes some water sampling, a veritable tide of little black particles comes along, attacks the vessel, and leaves everyone aboard dead. Seems that there’s a plan afoot to change the climate (beyond what we’ve already experienced); it will kill millions, and it’s up to NUMA stars Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala to stop it. More from the very busy Cussler, who seems only to be getting better. Buy multiples.

D’Amato, Brian. The Sacrifice Game. Dutton. Jun. 2012. 672p. ISBN 9780525952411. $29.95. THRILLER
In his debut, In the Courts of the Sun, D’Amato had a bunch of scientists send math prodigy Jed DeLanda back to 664 C.E. to see how the Maya went about predicting the apocalypse of 2012. Having arrived in the body of a human sacrifice and taken a good look around, Jed decided to bring on the apocalypse—because clearly humanity needs to be put out of its misery. Here, however, the scientists back in the future have gotten wind of Jed’s plans and work to stop him. Buy where Courts and other sf thrillers are popular.

Ellis, David. The Wrong Man. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780399158285. $25.95. CD/downloadable: Penguin Audio. THRILLER
The case looks pretty bleak when homeless Iraq War veteran Mike Stoller is accused of murdering a paralegal coming home from night-school class, as he suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder that badly affects his memory. But lawyer Jason Kolarich thinks that the young woman was killed because she had been tracing a money trail linking terrorists to some leading corporations. Interesting premise, and Ellis’s dual standing as an Edgar Award winner and James Patterson’s latest coauthor should attract readers.

Grecian, Alex. The Yard. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780399149542. $26.95. CD/downloadable: Penguin Audio. HISTORICAL THRILLER
After its failure to capture Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard creates the Murder Squad—12 detectives charged with investigating the thousands of murders in grimy, crime-filled London. They’re not having much luck. Then one of their members is killed, and newly hired Walter Day teams with the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley, to track down the killer and figure out why he seems to be gunning for the entire squad. This is a new series, but Grecian is no newbie; he’s author of the long-running and critically acclaimed graphic novel series Proof. I’m intrigued.

Grenville, Kate. Sarah Thornhill. Grove. Jun. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780802120243. $25; eISBN 9780802194459. LITERARY
A novel of frontier violence in Australia, Grenville’s The Secret River won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for a bunch more. The Lieutenant continued the story. Now here’s the wrap-up, featuring Sarah, the youngest child of River’s pioneer William Thornhill. Alas, Sarah doesn’t know that her father’s fortune is built on cruel exploitation of the Aborigines. Grenville is forthright in her examination of the historical record—she’s drawing partly on family history—and the first two books were memorable, so I’m anticipating. With a reading group guide.

Healy, Dermot. Long Time, No See. Viking. Jun. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780670023608. $27.95. LITERARY
A multithreat author (he does novels, short stories, poetry, and memoir) with a stack of awards—and called Ireland’s finest living novelist by no less a luminary than Roddy Doyle—Healy here offers his first novel in more than a decade. It’s narrated by a young man called Mister Psyche, who lives in a remote coastal village and becomes involved in a series of escapades with grand uncle JoeJoe and JoeJoe’s neighbor, the Blackbird. Lots of Irish lit lovers out there for this book, but you don’t have to be one of them to give this a serious look. 

Kellerman, Jesse. Potboiler. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780399159039. $25.95. LITERARY THRILLER
Kellerman does not write classic thrillers like his famous parents, Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, but uses the genre to explore quirky ideas or philosophical questions in a way that hits his books into the cognoscenti’s court. In his latest, unavailing middle-aged college professor Arthur Pfeffenkorn gets some bright ideas when his phenomenally accomplished friend, best-selling thriller writer William de la Vallèe, is lost at sea. For starters, he searches out de la Vallèe widow, the woman he himself loved and lost. From there, things get darker. Watch this one for sophisticated thriller readers.

Makine, Andreï. The Life of an Unknown Man. Graywolf. Jun. 2012. 192p. ISBN 9781555976149. pap. $15. LITERARY
Both before and after the publication of his much-loved Dreams of My Russian Summers, Makine has written novels exploring the burden of Russian history in the 20th century, but this one has a twist. Having spent years exiled in Paris (like Makine himself), a disillusioned writer named Shutov revisits St. Petersburg and strikes up a friendship with an old man named Volsky, who recalls the siege of Leningrad, Stalin’s purges, and a grand love. In the end, Makine brings things up to date and shakes them up a bit by showing that the old man is clearly happier than the desperate go-getters of contemporary Russia. I always enjoy Makine’s books and hope you’ll take a look at this one.

Medina, Pablo. Cubop City Blues. Grove. Jun. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780802119841. $25; eISBN 9780802194558. LITERARY
A novelist (The Cigar Roller), poet (Floating Island), and translator (most recently of Federico García Lorca’s immortal Poeta en Nueva York), Medina puts all his talents to use in this tale of a reimagined New York at the time Latin jazz emerged. In Cubop City, a child is born nearly blind and is homeschooled. But when he’s 25, the Storyteller, as he is called, must care for his parents, Cuban exiles now dying of cancer, which he does by spinning stories from his fervid imagination. Outside the windows, Afro-Cuban jazz patters along. I must say that I don’t know Medina’s work as well as I should, but this does sound gorgeous, no? 

 Moriarty, Laura. The Chaperone. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9781594487019. $26.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. LITERARY
Imagine having to chaperone boldly defiant, black-bobbed actress Louise Brooks, who even at 15 must have been a handful. That job falls to traditional but thoughtful Cora Carlisle, a mid-thirties married woman with her own reasons for agreeing to escort Louise from Wichita to New York, where she will be studying dance. Louise will surely light up the book as she did the screen (I do love her), but the brave thing here is to make Cora’s transformative experience the center of the book. Especially appealing to book clubs, so the reading group guide is a plus.

Palahniuk, Chuck. Invisible Monsters Remix. Norton. Jun. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780393083521. $25.95. POP FICTION
Published as a paperback original in 1999, Palahniuk’s tale of a fashion model who loses everything when she is badly disfigured in a drive-by shooting gets a makeover here, featuring new chapters, new scenes, and special design elements. It’s being billed as a “director’s cut,” which Palahniuk fans will definitely want.

Pearson, Ridley. The Risk Agent. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780399158834. $25.95. THRILLER
You have to love the guy. Not only is he the author of 16 best-selling novels, not only is he the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in detective fiction at Oxford University, but he’s a founding member (with Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Greg Iles) of the Rock Bottom Remainders. In his latest, a Chinese national working for an American firm in Shanghai is hustled away by bad guys, along with his security guard and a pile of top-secret papers. Rutherford Risk operative Grace Chua, a forensic accountant, tracks down the money, while colleague John Knox uses his combat expertise—a lot—as he looks for the hostage. The start of a new series; likely big.

Rice, Luanne. Little Night. Pamela Dorman: Viking. 336p. ISBN 9780670023561. $26.95. POP FICTION
Lots of novels feature estranged sisters, but Clare and Anne are divided for especially astonishing reasons—Clare tried to protect Anne from an abusive husband and ended up in jail for assault, with Anne’s spurious defense of her husband the main reason for the conviction. Years later, Clare finds her niece Grit on her New York doorstep, and they work at building a relationship; there’s even a hint that Anne may be in town looking for reconciliation. Rice’s 30th novel should follow the rest to bestsellerdom; buy multiples, and think about this one for book clubs.

Walcott, Derek. Moon-Child: A Play. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 128p. ISBN 9780374533397. pap. $16. DRAMA
No, not poetry from Nobel prize winner Walcott but a play—the first I’ve ever featured in Prepub Alert, unless memory fails me. On lush St. Lucia, a wicked Planter who’s apparently the Devil in disguise aims to turn the island over for development but meets his match in the matriarch of the Bouton family. Not a big, big work but a likely a delight for the literati.

Wright, Tom. What Dies in Summer. Norton. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780393064025. $25.95. POP FICTION
When Jim and cousin L.A., who’s just moved in with him and his grandmother, discover the body of a raped and murdered girl in a field, Jim’s special gift—he’s got the Sight—comes in handy. Unfortunately, it also leads them into big trouble. The publisher is putting a lot of effort behind this debut, billed as coming-of-age Southern gothic; buy where such titles are popular and otherwise keep an eye on this one. 

Zimmerman, Jean. The Orphanmaster. Viking. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780670023646. $27.95. HISTORICAL
In 1663 New Amsterdam, orphan children are disappearing, and 22-year-old trader Blandine von Couvering wants to know why—not least because she herself is an orphan. She joins forces (in more ways than one) with British spy Edward Drummond, but before they can find the culprit—is it the governor’s decadent nephew, a crazed Algonquin trapper, or the shady orphanmaster?—Blandine is accused of witchcraft and Edward is caught and sentenced to hanging. Lots of excitement, and not just in the narrative; the house is really behind this debut. Watch.