Library Journal

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.

Abbott, Jeff. The Last Minute. Grand Central. Jul. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780446575201. $24.95. lrg. prnt. Downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Ex-CIA agent Sam Capra owns bars worldwide for a desperate reason; even as he works for a mysterious network, he uses the bars as a cover to hunt for his kidnapped son. Now the kidnappers will return the child if Sam agrees to murder the one man they see as a threat. Some bargain. The author of Adrenaline is big but could be even bigger; keep on tap for thriller fans.

Gross, Andrew. 15 Seconds. Morrow. Jul. 2012.  336p. ISBN 9780061655975. $25.99; eISBN 9780062196354. lrg. prnt. THRILLER
So what can happen in 15 seconds? Leading surgeon Henry Steadman can get pulled over by a cop for a minor traffic violation, the cop can get shot by someone speeding by in a blue sedan, and  Henry can get blamed, as he’s suddenly the target of a huge manhunt. With a one-day laydown on July 7 and a 200,000-copy first printing; Grossman is a Patterson coauthor but obviously does pretty well on his own.

Haynes, Elizabeth. Into the Darkest Corner. Harper: HarperCollins. Jul. 2012. 426p. ISBN 9780062197252. $25.99. THRILLER
Gorgeous Lee Brightman seems like a dream come true to Catherine Bailey—until he shows himself to be violent and controlling, something her friends just don’t believe. Four years later, he’s in jail, and she’s staring life over, traumatized enough to check every lock twice and vary her routine daily. Sure, the guy next door looks appealing, but then there’s that phone call…. A surprise hit in the UK, where it was named an Amazon Best Book of the Year, this book has been sold to 12 foreign markets and Revolution Films as well; the first printing is hovering around 100,000 copies. Big and scary; you might need multiples.

John, David. Flight from Berlin. Harper: HarperCollins. Jul. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780062091567. $24.99; eISBN 9780062091604. THRILLER
British journalist Richard Denham is attending the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and despite Hitler’s white-washing efforts, he doesn’t like what he sees. American swimmer Eleanor Emerson was bounced from the team at the last moment because of her brashness, but she’s covering the event for a newspaper back home. Chance and shared opinions throw them together, and then they’re after a missing dossier that could destroy the Third Reich’s leadership. Unfortunately, both the Gestapo and British intelligence are after them. Billed as a blend of Alan Furst and Daniel Silva, and featuring many real-life characters, including those we met recently in Erik Larson’s In the Garden of the Beasts, this book should do the trick for anyone who likes historical thrillers. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Rollins, James. Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel. Morrow. Jul. 2012.  448p. ISBN 9780061784798. $27.99; lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. THRILLER
Another Sigma Force novel, so freshly minted that I can’t even tell you about the plot. But Rollins’s most recent title, The Devil’s Colony, debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times best sellers list, all his titles have hit the list instantly since 2004, and the one-day laydown on July 26 and 350,000-copy first printing say the rest.

Silva, Daniel. The Fallen Angel. Harper: HarperCollins. Jul. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780062073129. $27.99; eISBN 9780062073174. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. THRILLER
Art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon is glad to be back in Rome, cleaning up a Caravaggio. Then he gets a call from erstwhile friend Monsignor Luigi Donati, the pope’s private secretary, who’s found the body of a beautiful woman lying shattered beneath the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. No, Allon does not see this as a suicide. Digging deeper, he uncovers a ring of antiquities smugglers with revenge on their minds. And that’s just the beginning. The one-day laydown on July 7 and 500,000-copy first printing make this pretty much essential.

Climate Central Inc., Global Weirdness: Severe Storms, Deadly Heat Waves, Parching Drought, Rising Seas, and the Weather of the Future. Pantheon. Jul. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9780307907301. $22.95. SCIENCE
We hear so much about climate change, but do we really know all the facts? Climate Central, Inc., a nonprofit, nonpartisan science and journalism organization founded in 2008, is here to help. Instead of long, discursive explanations, the book offers 50 entries that aim to be accessible. Is climate ever normal? What has caused climate change in the past? Find out here; looks to be a great resource for high school papers, too.

McGee, William. Attention All Passengers: The Airlines’ Dangerous Descent—and How To Reclaim Our Skies. Harper: HarperCollins. Jul. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780062088376. $26.99. CURRENT AFFAIRS/BUSINESS
An award-winning travel journalist for Consumer Reports and the only consumer advocate on the Future of Aviation Advisory Committee, McGee crisscrossed the country on every airline imaginable and talked to pilots, mechanics, passengers, airline CEOs, Ralph Nader, and even infamous JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater to offer this critique of the airlines. Here, he shows executives cutting costs by relinquishing flights to regional airlines and outsourcing repairs to inexperienced mechanics abroad. Now I’m scared to fly to ALA Midwinter; with a 35,000-copy first printing.

Ford, Richard. Canada. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780061692048  $26.99; eISBN 9780062096807. lrg. prnt. LITERARY
Fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons feels pretty much abandoned; not only are his parents jailed for robbing a bank but his twin sister is humiliated enough to have run away. He’s rescued by a family friend, who sends him across the border from Montana to Canada, where he’s taken in by a charismatic fellow American who turns out to have a dark and dangerous side. In the short run, however, Dell takes advantage of Saskatchewan’s wide open spaces to remake himself. Switching publishers, the ever beautifully apt Ford gets a 200,000-copy first printing and a grand tour that includes Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Oxford/Jackson (MS), Portland (ME), Portland (OR), Raleigh/Durham, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Joinson, Suzanne. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar. Bloomsbury USA, dist. by Macmillan. Jun. 2012. 9781608198115. $26. LITERARY
Kashgar: an ancient city along the Silk Road, now in western China, and the destiny of missionaries Evangeline (Eva) and sister Lizzie in 1923. Lizzie is imbued, while Eva simply wants to get away from home and has cleverly contracted to write about her experiences. Meanwhile, in contemporary London, a young woman named Frieda contends with a Yemeni refuge she’s found sleeping outside her door and news that she’s inherited the contents of a flat whose occupant she doesn’t know. So far, this looks charming and dusky and imbued with a wonderful sense of history and place. Aside from first novelist, Joinson has two amazing-sounding jobs: she works in the literature department of the British Council, specializing in the Middle East, North Africa, and China, and she is writer in residence at the UK’s Shoreham Airport. That alone makes this book sound promising, but let us not forget that Bloomsbury is the publisher that brought you this year’s National Book Award winner, Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones. 

Pratchett, Terry & Stephen Baxter. The Long Earth. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780062067753. $25.99; eISBN 9780062067760. SF
Big news: Discworld master Pratchett is here creating a new world for the first time in three decades, a series of parallel earths called the Long Earth. World-class misanthrope Larry Lynsey has relocated to the Long Earth’s farthest reaches; he’s the only person around for ten planets. Unfortunately, he’s got visitors—two lost souls who took a wrong turn a few stars back—and Larry is going to have to get rid of them. Pratchett keeps going strong—last October’s Snuff debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times best sellers list, his highest spot there ever—and there’s a 75,000-copy first printing. Essential wherever sf is read.

Brinkley, Douglas. Cronkite. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 752p. ISBN 9780061374265. $34.99; eISBN 9780062196637. lrg. prnt. BIOGRAPHY
We all think we know Walter Cronkite, consummate journalist and “the most trusted man in America,” as he was often called. But, having dug into the just opened Cronkite Archive at the University of Texas at Austin and interviewed over 200 people, from Morley Safer to Katie Couric, Brinkley should tell us much more. This one’s big; with a one-day laydown on 5/29, a 250,000-copy first printing, and a seven-city tour to Austin, Boston, Dallas, Houston, New York, Philadelphia ,and Washington, DC.

Maraniss, David. Barack Obama: The Story. S. & S. Jun. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9781439160404. $32.50. BIOGRAPHY
So we’ve read a lot about President Obama lately—David Remnick’s The Bridge came out just last year. But Maraniss, the Pulitzer Prize–winning associate editor of the Washington Post and author of books on subjects ranging from Bill Clinton to the 1960 Rome Olympics, is a force to be reckoned with. Maraniss examines not simply what Obama has accomplished but the forces that have shaped him, going back generations. Lots of interviews, including with the President himself. Expect a big boom.