Fiction

McDonell's third novel, a story of the messy consequences attendant upon a rogue American operation conducted against a Somalian freedom fighter, introduces a spy who could have easily walked off the pages of le Carré's better works. An American agent and recent Harvard graduate, Michael Teak has been assigned to deliver money to a band of east African freedom fighters led by local hero Hatashil. But while they're meeting, the village is decimated by a missile strike. Immediately, a mysterious story hits the wire, claiming Hatashil's men massacred the villagers. The news coincides with the Pulitzer Prize being awarded to a Harvard professor, Susan Lowell, whose book celebrates Hatashil. As Teak tries to come to terms with his own apparent expendability, Lowell fights vilification when a video that purportedly shows her pledging to kill for Hatashil surfaces. Meanwhile, an old Agency hand, Alan Green—Harvard alum and godfather to Teak—ties the stories together with his nefarious black world maneuverings. Teak is the most attractive fictional spy in quite some time, and even if the Harvard subplots feel too self-indulgent and insidery, one hopes this isn't Teak's only appearance. (Aug.)

Alice Fairweather, a Californian transplanted to the New York City suburbs with her Harvard-educated, Maine-born husband and their two precocious sons, undergoes a major transformation in Lehner's unpleasantly overstuffed latest. An unexpected visit from her husband's college roommate, Abelardo Llobet Carvajal, who is seeking to canonize his great aunt, sets Alice on a journey to Nicaragua. Although the author has imbued her characters with charming eccentricities—husband Waldo is an inventor with a fondness for limericks; one son, Henry, tends to speak in thesaurus-ese (“hypogeal” and “egregious”); the other son, Ezra, lives “fully in his sleep”; and Alice has an interest in dreams that parlays into a part-time radio hosting job where she interprets callers' dreams—there is a bewildering lack of depth and connection between the characters, who come across mainly as anthropomorphized collections of quirks. Add in an unwieldy plot that includes marital infidelity, dream interpretation, the exigencies of upper-crust life in Maine, the obstacles to canonization, Nicaraguan politics, coffee-bean farming, suicide, Catholic guilt, snow blindness and canine blood donation, and you've got something of an unholy mess that never quite pulls itself together. (Aug.)

Quartey's winning debut, a police procedural set in modern Ghana, introduces gifted detective Darko Dawson. Dawson leaves the capital city of Accra to investigate a murder in remote Ketanu, where traditional beliefs about the spirit world still reign. He finds no lack of suspects, as the beautiful victim was a married man's impatient mistress and a controversial crusader against AIDS and trokosi, the ancient custom in which young girls become slave wives to local priests. Ketanu is also the village from which Dawson's mother disappeared years before, and his visits awaken a buried need to solve that mystery as well. Dawson is a wonderful creation, a man as rich with contradictions as the Ghana Quartey so delightfully evokes—a loving husband and father with anger management issues on the job and a personal fondness for marijuana. Despite a not hugely exciting denouement, readers will be eager for the next installment in what one hopes will be a long series. (July)

Rosenfeld (What She Saw) delves into the thornier side of female friendship in this hip take on modern womanhood. Wendy and Daphne have been best friends forever, but their relationship, sketched out in e-mails that cascade from their group of girlfriends, comes to a breaking point when Daphne suddenly pulls herself together, stops fooling around with a married man and finds a new love interest who happens to be handsome, rich and obnoxious. In quick succession, Daphne ties the knot, moves into a brownstone and gets pregnant. Meanwhile, Wendy, a low-paid editorial drone who's been trying and failing to conceive with her slacker husband, feels that her own life is thrown into miserable relief. She begins to lash out at Daphne, first passively, and then rather aggressively. In the course of a few twists, misunderstandings and revealed secrets, Wendy questions whether the source of her inferiority complex is Daphne or herself. The two friends are by turns frustrating and sympathetic, while Rosenfeld takes a dark, hilarious and painfully accurate view of the less-than-pure reasons why women stay friends. (July)

In his mind's eye, precocious 12-year-old Eugene “Huge” Smalls, the narrator of Fuerst's quirky debut, is the lineal descendant of Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and other pulp detectives he admires. When the nursing home where his beloved grandmother stays is vandalized, Huge sees a chance to follow in their footsteps by solving the crime. What follows is a picaresque romp around suburban New Jersey as Huge misreads clues, misinterprets motives and mistakes mundane incidents for diabolical schemes as only an inexperienced adolescent with a restless imagination can. Largely plotless, this coming-of-age story is full of awkward digressions. Still, Fuerst demonstrates a sensitive ear for contemporary teen talk, delicacy at handling the amusingly contentious relationship between Huge and his older sister and mom, and skill at conveying a child's-eye view of the world that is full of nostalgia, humor, candor and emotions that all readers can relate to. (July)

Director Del Toro (who won an Oscar for Pan's Labyrinth) makes a dramatic splash in his fiction debut, the first volume in a vampires vs. humanity trilogy, coauthored with Hogan (Prince of Thieves). Just as a jumbo jet on a flight from Germany to New York is touching down at JFK, something goes terribly wrong. When Ephraim Goodweather, of the Centers for Disease Control, investigates the darkened plane, he finds all but four passengers and crew dead, drained of blood. Despite Goodweather's efforts to keep the survivors segregated, they get discharged into the general population. Soon after, the corpses of the tragedy's victims disappear. The epidemiologist begins to credit the wild stories of Abraham Setrakian, an elderly pawnbroker who's the book's Van Helsing figure, and concludes that a master vampire has arrived in the U.S. The authors maintain the suspense and tension throughout in a tour de force reminiscent of Whitley Strieber's early work. (June)

This successful sophomore turn at chick lit (after Austenland) from YA and graphic novelist Hale sets up a platonic relationship between a dashing movie star and a Mormon housewife. While in Los Angeles to ink a deal for a script she's written, pregnant Becky Jack holds her own against her big screen crush, Felix Callahan, known the world over for charming his way through romantic comedies. Witty banter draws them together, and though they debate what their fascination with one another could mean, an improbable friendship is born. Their alliance weathers the occasional break, Felix's disinterest in children and his indifference toward Becky's Mormon faith; spousal jealousy and the chasm separating their lifestyles also throw an occasional curveball. Hale keeps the prose crackling with humor and has a sure hand in creating nuanced, believable characters, so when otherwise unlikely plot turns creep up—Becky getting cast opposite Felix—they're, well, likely enough. Though Becky just wants to keep her best friend and her normal life, readers will hope she gets nothing less than a fairy tale ending. (June)

When the editor-in-chief of World News magazine offers Amanda Jaffe a $500,000 retainer to defend Charlie Marsh, an ex-con turned bestselling spiritual guru, in bestseller Margolin's entertaining fourth thriller to feature the Portland, Ore., lawyer (after Proof Positive), Amanda can't say no. Marsh, who fled the country in 1997 after being accused of murdering Congressman Arnold Pope Jr., has spent the 12 years since in the African country of Batanga “under the protection of its benevolent ruler,” Jean-Claude Baptiste, whose threat to kill Marsh for sleeping with his favorite wife has prompted Marsh to return to the U.S. to stand trial. Toss in Pope's revenge-seeking father, several homicidal maniacs and the evil head of the Batanga secret service, and you've got a plot set on full boil. While some readers will figure out the identity of Pope's real killer early on, all will enjoy following the resourceful Amanda as she puts the puzzle pieces together. (June)

A battlefield promise sends a British soldier on a romantic mission in Ford's debut, a historical that starts strong but meanders toward a muted finale. During the Christmas truce of 1914, Lt. Henry “Hal” Montgomery swaps gifts with a German officer, Wilhelm Wetzlar, who is engaged to Sam Ross, an English schoolteacher. Longing for his great love, Wilhelm asks Hal to search out the woman to tell her he is safe. After a battlefield injury leaves Hal unable to have children, he finds Sam in a village near Stratford and discovers she has recently given birth to Wilhelm's illegitimate child. Hiding the fact that Wilhelm is alive, Hal persuades Sam to move to London and to allow him to be a father figure to the young boy. As the war continues, Hal becomes engaged with espionage work, but can't convince Sam to allow him into her heart. A side trip to Switzerland and a lengthy subplot involving Sam's sisters dampen the tension created by the possible revelation of Hal's secret, and the novel's rushed final moments fail to provide a satisfying finish. (June)

In bestseller Deaver's surprise-filled third Kathryn Dance novel (after The Sleeping Doll), Dance, an agent with the California Bureau of Investigation, gets an eye-opening education in some of the hottest areas of the cyberworld. After an auto accident kills two teens, vicious smears of Travis Brigham, the teen driver deemed responsible but not charged in the accident, appear on the Chilton Report, a popular blog. After one of the accusing bloggers barely survives an assault, Brigham becomes a “person of interest.” Brigham disappears, and attacks, each preceded by a crude roadside cross, spread to other Chilton bloggers. Meanwhile, Dance also looks into a mercy killing at Monterey Bay Hospital that takes an unexpected turn, and Robert Harper, a special prosecutor from the attorney general's office in Sacramento, begins an investigation that will affect her. Deaver's expert and devious plotting makes it a challenge to stay only a couple of steps behind him. (June)

Coming across as the love child of Bela Tarr's film Werckmeister Harmóniák and Gabriel García Márquez's “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” this disconcerting and darkly atmospheric novel, set in an unnamed European town secluded high in the mountains, deals with the effects of collective guilt by examining the dark secrets of its residents as they recall the hardships of war and occupation. Following the end of an unspecified war that sounds very much like WWII, protagonist Brodeck, who survived the camps by literally becoming a guard's pet (Brodeck the Dog), is reunited with his wife and daughter. After the murder of a mystical drifter, Brodeck is made to write a narrative of the events for the authorities absolving the village's inhabitants of any blame. Though there are no innocents, by the end some characters make tentative footsteps toward reclaiming their humanity. Claudel's style is very visual and evocative (he also wrote and directed the film I've Loved You So Long), and this novel, like the brothers Grimm fables, is full of terror, horror, and beauty and wonder. (June)

Brookner's 24th book is an often monotonous meditation on an elderly man's solitary existence. Much of the first several chapters are dedicated to 72-year-old Paul Sturgis's stuffy reflections on his attitudes toward life and loneliness. The narrative shows some promise when Sturgis meets recently divorced Vicky Gardner on a trip to Venice, but their ensuing relationship—in Venice and later, when they both return to London—is mired in a painfully polite restraint. As if in a parody of English manners, Vicky and Sturgis labor over countless afternoon teas without forming anything resembling human contact. Vicky often approaches moments of vulnerable honesty, only to act appalled if he shows any interest in these rare glimpses of humanity. Sturgis's interactions with his ex-lover Sarah, meanwhile, are slightly more candid, but these merely highlight Sturgis's painfully apparent dull formality. (They also give him more material to pontificate over.) While the novel happens in the current day, the occasional mobile phone feels as out of place as it would in, say, one of the Henry James novels that could be the inspiration for this tedious exercise in drawing-room politesse. (June)

The turbulence of contemporary Pakistani politics is refracted through the intimate prism of a fractious extended family in this mature debut, written when the author was 23. Twenty-year-old Zaki Shirazi, his military father dead before he was born, is raised with his rebellious female cousin Samar Api in a Lahore household dominated by his liberal mother, Zakia, editor of a crusading women's magazine, and his strong-willed, culturally conservative grandmother, Daadi. The nimble two-track narrative shifts between post-9/11, when Zaki returns from college in Massachusetts for Samar's wedding, and his childhood in the early 1990s, around the time then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was deposed, an act that polarized the country. The political background frames Sethi's complex narrative, but the primary focus is on the family's relatively privileged—and often as argumentative as it is loving—household, providing Western readers with an insider's atmospheric take on a culture and a country much in the news these days. (June)

From the very beginning of Schell's debut novel, a would-be Shakespearean fable set in a 16th-century Tuscan village, food lust takes center stage. While cruel-hearted olive tycoon Giuseppe and his underling, Benito, forage for truffles, the Jewish farmer Davido worships the tomato plants on his farm: “the plant's fragrance... transcended his olfactory organs to purify his heart and cleanse his mind.” When the new priest allows Davido's “love apples” into town for the first time, life starts to get complicated. For one, the stepdaughter of our villain, Giuseppe, falls for the already betrothed Davido—an outcast besides, due to his station and religion. Bawdy hijinks coded in ribald Italian reach a climax at the village's Feast of the Drunken Saint donkey race, a jarring spin on Shakespeare's more tawdry rhymes. Attempts at a similarly Shakespearean cast of characters (the novel opens with an actual cast of characters) instead result in a silly collection of one-dimensional characters who keep the tale moving until the fate of our star-crossed lovers, and of tomato sauce, are predictably resolved. (June)

Hutchins, author of the audiobook podcast trilogy 7th Son, makes his print debut with the stellar first of an interactive supernatural thriller series. Zach Taylor, an art therapist, must evaluate Martin Grace, a blind audio engineer suspected of a dozen homicides, to determine whether Martin is mentally competent to stand trial for the murder of hip-hop singer Tanya Gold, whose body was “torn literally limb from limb.” Martin claims he's an “unwitting psychic sniper,” foreseeing crimes actually committed by a Russian demon or “Dark Man.” One of his possible earlier victims was Martin's psychiatrist, Sophronia Poole, the girlfriend of Zack's dad, William V. Taylor, the New York City DA seeking to convict Martin. Weisman, an alternative reality game whiz, is responsible for the items inside the book's front pocket—a psychiatric report, family photos, death and birth certificates, etc.—that allow the reader to follow a multimedia trail of clues. (June)

Fans of role-playing games will best appreciate Hill's genre-bending third novel to feature L.A. detective-shaman Stephan Raszer (after The Last Days of Madame Rey). Jehovah's Witness elder Silas Endicott hires Raszer to find his 20-year-old daughter, Katy, abducted by three men in dark business suits after she left an abandoned dance hall high up in a canyon. Raszer probes the twists of fate that led Katy from her life as “the last pure thing” to an enslaved pawn of a modern descendant of the original assassins. From California and New Mexico to the war-torn borderlands where Turkey, Iran and Iraq meet, Raszer relies on both technology and mystic connections to track Katy. In the end, Raszer must figure out how to penetrate an ancient fortress, where the leader known only as the “Old Man” holds sway. Hill's overheated and at times laborious mix of religious arcana and the occult may make this a slog for those expecting a conventional thriller. (June)

A thriving arranged-marriage bureau in contemporary India resides at the heart of Zama's charming debut. The customers who visit Mr. Ali's bureau—a project he began in retirement to pass the time—are mostly pragmatists: they look for mates based on height, complexion, caste, economic status and religion. As business picks up, Mr. Ali, a Muslim, takes on a young assistant, Aruna, a poor Hindu girl, who helps him formulate happy unions. While the bureau prospers, Mr. Ali and his wife contend with their headstrong son, a human rights advocate who worries them constantly, and Aruna faces her dismal home life and a handsome young client who may want more from her than lists of potential matches. Zama's strength is in showing the love that makes the matchmaking system possible, looking at the reciprocity, trust and devotion that underlie marriage. Though the dialogue can tend toward the wooden and some problems work out too tidily, Zama's delightful world of mid-morning tea breaks, afternoon siestas, picnics in mango groves and meddlesome aunties is a pleasant place to hang out. (June)

Swedish author Holmqvist's unconvincing debut, part of a wave of dystopias hitting this summer, is set in a near future where men and women deemed “dispensable”—those unattached, childless, employed in nonessential professions—are checked into reserve bank units for biological material and become organ donors and subjects of pharmaceutical and psychological experiments. When Dorrit Weger, who has lived her adult life isolated and on the brink of poverty, is admitted to the unit, she finds, to her surprise, comfort, friendship and love. Though the residents are under constant surveillance, their accommodations are luxurious, and in their shared plight they develop an intimacy rarely enjoyed in the outside world. But an unlikely development forces Dorrit to confront unexpected choices. Unfortunately, Holmqvist fails to fully sell the future she posits, and Dorrit's underdeveloped voice doesn't do much to convey the direness of her situation. Holmqvist's exploration of female desire, human need and the purpose of life has its moments, but the novel suffers in comparison with similar novels such as The Handmaid's Tale and Never Let Me Go. (June)

Ciment's spare and surprisingly gripping novel details one long weekend in the life of Ruth and Alex Cohen, an elderly New York couple hoping to sell their East Village apartment of 45 years. Ruth is a retired teacher and Chekhov devotee, and Alex is an artist, currently adding colorful illuminations to the couples' old FBI files. As they ready for an open house, a gas tanker truck gets stuck in the Midtown tunnel, seizing the city with gridlock and fear of a terrorist attack. (In scenes that border on parody, the local news adopts a “Danger in the Tunnel” graphic and runs viewer polls about whether “terrorists take drugs.”) Meanwhile, the Cohens' beloved dachshund, Dorothy, falls ill and has to be taken to an uptown animal hospital. As the real estate market swings in response to the news about the tanker, the Cohens wait for news about their dog and confront the reality of leaving their home. Ciment plays the veterinary, real estate and domestic details like elements of a thriller plot, while the couple's love of their dog provides heartrending texture—literature with commercial crossover. (June)

Eminent translator Howard gives a leavened, modern feel to Maupassant's weary tale of a young aristocratic loser infatuated with an on-the-rise Parisian salon hostess. André Mariolle, a rich, unmarried 37-year-old nobody, is introduced into the artistic salon of the wealthy young widow Madame Michèle de Burne and falls in love with the pretty hostess, a fiercely independent, utterly self-absorbed but intelligent coquette who is bent on attracting a cadre of slavish, brilliant admirers. A thoroughly “modern” woman, Madame de Burne encourages André's advances only insofar as they proceed discreetly; however, André is head over heels. She gives herself to him but remains emotionally aloof, leading to André's self-exile from Paris and his hiring of a comely girl as his domestic servant-cum-mistress in the wrong-headed hope of “curing” himself. Maupassant draws out Andre's tale of woe, a vehement meditation on feminine egotism, in dire speculations. (June)

Australian Yvonne Bornstein—who was abducted along with her husband by Chechen terrorists in Russia in 1992 and wrote a memoir of her experience, Eleven Days of Hell—serves as the model for Patti Monroe, the heroine of this run-of-the-mill thriller from Hagberg (Allah's Scorpion), who's updated the story to the post-9/11 world. Patti, an American businesswoman, and her husband, David, fly to Moscow to settle a dispute with their unsavory Russian partners. On the ride from the airport, their hosts stop the car, shoot David in the head and threaten to kill Patti as well. The thugs hold Patti for a $20 million ransom, which is to be used to help al-Qaeda get a nuclear weapon into the U.S. During Patti's brutal ordeal, the FBI works with the MVD, a KGB successor, just as the U.S. and Russian agencies cooperated on the Bornstein kidnap case. Patti's transformation into an action heroine may strike some readers as improbable, despite her training in self-defense years before. (June)

In her poignant first novel, former South African magazine editor Morley explores a mother's grief. Abbe Deighton, part-time journalist and full-time wife and mother, finds herself living in Hawaii with her preacher husband, Greg, and precocious three-year-old daughter, Cleo, thousands of miles from her South African birthplace. Her flight from an abusive father and complicit mother is not accidental—her poet brother also fled to America—and when Cleo is killed in a car accident, Abbe re-examines the choices that have brought her so far from home. She and her husband become estranged as he turns to God and forgives the man who killed their daughter while Abbe descends into self-pity and anger at the unfairness of life. Their marriage suffers and Greg loses his job, forcing Abbe to turn homeward for financial help. Upon returning to South Africa, she confronts the ghosts of her family's past and the reality of her homeland's future. Morley convincingly depicts a grief-stricken woman without resorting to clichés, and though she telegraphs the resolution of Abbe's plight early on, the storytelling, line by line, is rather beautiful. (June)

In Smyth's enchanting debut, set in Black Rock, Tobago, young protagonist Celia D'Abadie searches for traces of her absent lineage—the mother who died in childbirth and the white father reputed to live in England. Raised by her aunt Tassi in the shadow of fear cast by her lecherous uncle, Roman, Celia is given a prophetic glimpse into her future from Mrs. Jeremiah, the village seer. At 16, Celia flees after Roman rapes her, and en route to Trinidad, she meets William Shamiel. Under the guidance of William's family, Celia secures a job working as a maid for Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez, his fragile English wife, Helen, and their two children. Celia moves into their dysfunctional home and balances relationships with two men vying for her affection. As Celia and her employer become closer, Helen's dramatic descent into madness becomes more apparent. While the story line—naïve boonies dweller moves to big city and learns about life and love—has been done a million times, Smyth's deftly captured tropical landscape and superstitions are enough of a tweak to keep things interesting. (June)

Reidy's youthful collection weaves real-life personas with fictional characters, placing them in settings that reflect the oddities of the humdrum. In “Thingless,” Arkansas teenager Kyle searches for “a thing” that may define him at his new high school, but his plan backfires when he takes too much of an interest in the troubled girl next door. In the title story, agoraphobic narrator Jim structures his day around listening to classic comedy records, and the comedy club that opens below his apartment provides unexpected comfort and an unlikely, uncommon friendship. In the ironic, not quite credible but entertaining “Dancing Man,” Dale, a Chicago organist who plays by ear, lands a gig touring with Sod Off Shotgun, a ska rock band. Although the band doesn't find his organ skills up to par, he finds a niche dancing on stage as a novelty act to energize the crowd. Though the same themes are repeatedly pounded and sounded, and the twists become less fun and surprising later in the book, Reidy is a proficient and reliable performer in his chosen groove. (June)

In Greer's unconvincing fiction debut, two hit men pursue history professor Shelby Le Cervoisier after she unwittingly assists a rogue element of the U.S. Caribbean Basin Task Force assassinate Haiti's military dictator. One professional killer goes to Arkansas, the other to Arizona, her two most likely destinations. Luckily for Shelby, who flees with her sister to Arkansas, the assassin sent to that state, Hank Perkins, kills only targets he believes deserve death. After getting to know Shelby, Hank decides to help her instead. Meanwhile, the second killer, a sadist known as Vlad the Impaler, closes in. At one point, Hank wonders how Shelby's privileged background “equipped her to survive rape and torture, execute her abusers, and collaborate to assassinate a head of state?” The book never gives a satisfactory answer. Others might be able to pull off a story involving a hit man with a heart of gold, but Greer, the coauthor of a number of real estate investment books, fails to do so. (June)

Thayer (Shell Moon Beach) explores the tarnished interior of a family of Boston bankers as well as the more polished exterior they display in public in this tepid melodrama. Charlotte Wheelwright has a guilty conscience, so she flees Boston for Nantucket to start an organic farm on her grandmother's land. Nona is nearly 90, and the family is happy to have someone on the island with her year-round. A few years into her project, Charlotte begins making a small profit, and some members of the extended family have a problem with that. The clan gathers at the seaside mansion for the annual family meeting where the fate of Charlotte's garden will be decided. Much of the group, including Charlotte's addict brother, stay at the house all summer, to share in more festive occasions like Nona's birthday celebration, a wedding and the birth of a child. Charlotte, meanwhile, suddenly finds herself attracted to two men, but which will she choose? The clichéd family's clichéd squabbling—and the narrative as a whole—ends up being much ado about nothing. (June)

A University of Pennsylvania graduate moves to Washington, D.C., to work as a congressional aide in Ginder's lightly cynical Bright Lights, Big City treatment of Washington. Taylor Mark seems more interested in Late Night Shots parties (a displaced WASP social phenomenon) than political parties as he learns the ropes on Capital Hill, so the political satire feels mild compared to the social commentary Ginder offers about the Beltway social scene. Taylor begins an affair with his congressman's unhappy wife (she's a “gorgeous disaster”) and begins to doubt the character of his super-wealthy best friend, Chase Latham, son of a prominent Republican lobbyist who has a thing going with Taylor's cousin. But it seems Ginder has never met a cliché he didn't want to enshrine: here, wives of wealthy husbands are catty, gay men write gossip columns, rich guys are laddish boors and their parents are absent, medicated or disapproving. Although light on plot and character development, the author does manage to expose the Hill rat lifestyle with some scalpel-sharp observations, showing that snobbery and envy are bipartisan values. (June)

A daughter and her father navigate “the year that follows” September 11, revealing secrets and healing old wounds in this slightly higher-brow Nicholas Sparksian melodrama. Single mother Cat searches for the orphaned child of her brother, Kyle, after Kyle died on 9/11 in one of the towers. Turns out Kyle had confessed to Cat the night before that he believes he is a father, and that the child's mother worked in the World Trade Center. A year after the attack and with no orphan located, Cat's father, Sam, a widowed former military man dying of heart disease, invites Cat to join him in marking the anniversary of Kyle's death. Both Cat and Sam embark on emotional journeys toward each other and reconciliation, and along the way they each find love. The numerous sappy passages don't do any favors for a book with an already maudlin premise. (June)

British author Gregson bows in America with her fast-paced second novel, an absorbing international period drama concerning three young Englishwomen and a troubled boy journeying to India in the late 1920s. The eldest at 25, Viva Holloway is an orphan hoping to retrieve her lost parents' personal effects; she's paying her way by chaperoning three younger travelers. Rose Wetherby is going to India to be married; Victoria “Tor” Sowerby is Rose's bridesmaid; and 16-year-old Guy Glover is returning home after getting expelled from school for stealing. Throughout, narrative shifts reveal the travelers' perspectives and fears: Viva is haunted by a childhood and family she barely remembers; Rose is growing increasingly nervous about how little she knows of her fiancé; and Tor is eager, after a disappointing deb season in London, to find a husband of her own and avoid returning to England. Guy's strange behavior makes it clear he's unstable, and before long, he's assaulted a member of a powerful Indian family, setting off a frightening chain of events for both himself and Viva. Gregson's rich imagery, strong characters and gripping plot make this a resonant page-turner. (June)

Greek myth and biotechnology collide in Robinson's first in a new thriller series to feature the Chess Team, an elite Delta Force unit whose members each use a chess piece—king, bishop, knight, etc.—as a call sign. When the legendary Hydra, whose slaying was the second of Hercules' 12 labors, turns up in Peru alive (albeit in dormant form), Richard Ridley, the head of Manifold, a company “renowned in the world of genetics,” seeks to revive the beast. Ridley, who plans to use the Hydra's DNA to make humans immortal, transports the creature to the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, where the Chess Team winds up blasting away at semireptilean “regens,” people infected with Hydra serum who can regrow damaged or missing body parts almost instantly. Robinson (Antarktos Rising) will have readers turning the pages, but the resolution, which pulls many punches, will surprise no one. (May 26)

After two mysteries set in the aftermath of the French Revolution, Game of Patience (2006) and A Treasury of Regrets (2007), Alleyn recounts how her series sleuth, Aristide Ravel, became a detective in this superb prequel set in 1786. While visiting the site of a Paris church fire, Ravel, a poor aspiring writer who bears the emotional scars of a long-ago family trauma, encounters Inspector Brasseur, whom he recognizes as a former neighbor. Brasseur later seeks Ravel's help when an unidentified man turns up dead in a churchyard, his throat slit and a Masonic symbol carved into his chest, and hires Ravel as a subinspector. As the inquiry continues, Ravel begins to suspect that the Masons may be connected with a plot to replace Louis XVI with the Duc d'Orléans as well as a scandal involving the disappearance of the queen's necklace. Alleyn expertly captures the politics and atmosphere of the period, seamlessly integrating them into a traditional whodunit plot. (July)

Ike Schwartz returns to his CIA roots in Ramsey's awkward cozy-thriller hybrid, the fifth in the series to feature the Picketsville, Va., sheriff (after 2008's Stranger Room). While vacationing on the Delaware shore, Schwartz is asked by former CIA comrade Charlie Garland to look into the mysterious disappearance of his niece's fiancé, Nick Reynolds. Reynolds, a pilot and ex-navy man, left an enigmatic voice mail message before he vanished off the radar over the Chesapeake Bay. Schwartz's investigations indicate that Reynolds may have witnessed activities that threaten national security. A Picketsville subplot involving satanic rituals by high school students and missing Communion vessels distracts rather than contributes to the narrative. Ramsay is best when contrasting the smooth professional spies and military men with lively amateurs like the cranky Bunky Crispins, a fiercely independent waterman who shows that it's possible to be a patriot and a rebel at the same time. (June)

The squeamish will want to avoid this violence-laden sequel to Smith's Yellow Medicine (2008), in which terrorists framed Billy Lafitte, a former Minnesota deputy, for some gruesome murders. Now in South Dakota, Lafitte is serving as sergeant at arms for Steel God, the ruler of a biker gang whose control over his clan is coming under challenge as his health declines. After Lafitte gets an emergency message to return home, he crosses paths with the FBI agent he once assaulted, Franklin Rome, who's plotting revenge against him. Most of the action concerns the efforts of Rome, aided by his assistant, Joshua McKeown, to catch up with Lafitte, who accumulates additional enemies along the way. The book's brutality is exemplified by the blood sport that provides the title, which matches vicious dogs like rottweilers against helpless pigs. Fans of darkest noir will be most satisfied. (June)

If the 14 entries in Akashic's rainy city noir volume were school compositions, a teacher would likely assign mostly As and Bs and nothing below a C. Colbert has assembled stories that reflect Seattle's ethnic diversity (Native American, East Indian, Chinese, Latino, etc.) as well as tales from its rough past to its glory days of Boeing, Starbucks and Microsoft. Notable selections include Colbert's “Till Death Do Us...,” featuring 1940s PI Jake Rossiter, and G.M. Ford's wry “Food for Thought,” but two of the best come from nonmystery writers, Bharti Kirchner's disturbing “Promised Tulips” and Kathleen Alcalá's stark “Blue Sunday.” Brian Thornton's “Paper Son” provides a seamy look at corruption and vice in Seattle's Chinatown in the late 1800s. Patricia Harrington's “What Price Retribution?” demonstrates that people may be homeless, but they aren't necessarily helpless. Other contributors include Robert Lopresti, Skye Moody, Simon Wood and R. Barri Flowers. (June)

Welsh author Lewis holds nothing back in this unflinching noir, his second novel to feature PI Robin Llywelyn to be made available in the U.S. (after 2008's Swansea Terminal). A former debt collector who once had hopes of joining the police, Llywelyn now spends his days drinking and lurching from one moment to the next. In debt to a loan shark, Llywelyn hopes for a significant payday from a new client, Mrs. Dixon, who suspects her husband of marital infidelity. Mrs. Dixon's demand that the evidence of same be captured on videotape dramatically increases his expenses. In keeping with his preference to deal with immediate problems without weighing future consequences, Llywelyn goes further into debt by borrowing thousands of pounds from a shylock. While the plot line is serviceable, the book's power lies in Lewis's evocative prose coupled with the warts-and-all portrayal of Llywelyn, who knows that he's on a self-destructive path, but is unable to turn aside. (June)

Three separate lives eerily intersect in this effective if lightweight mystery from U.K. veteran Fraser (Next Door to Murder). Whenbusinessman James Markham dumps his fiancée to marry a near stranger, his family is suspicious of his elusive interior designer wife, Abigail. Callum Firbank, a loving husband, dedicated friend and esteemed neighbor, appears to have the perfect life until one ostensibly innocuous outing sets off a perplexing and dangerous chain of events. Finally, pleasant hotel owner Jill Irving loves life, but she can't escape a dark secret. All the principal characters appear to have nothing in common, except a stranger who enters their lives and wreaks havoc. Only in the book's final pages does the reader truly understand their connection and the root of their terror. Fraser succeeds in building an intricate, complex plot, but some may find the disjointedness of the narrative a bit confusing. (June)

At the outset of Conwell's middling 10th Tony Boudreaux mystery (after 2008's The Crystal Skull Murders), San Antonio resident Ted Odom hires the Austin, Tex., PI to track down a valuable map Odom's father left him as an inheritance. Besides showing parts of the African and South American coasts, the ancient Piri Reis map accurately depicts the Antarctic coastline, which hasn't been free of ice for 6,000 years. Odom can't be sure whether one of the many people who covet the map stole it, or whether his father, a puzzle addict, just hid it extremely well. The senior Odom's death was ruled an accident, but Boudreaux suspects foul play after traveling to San Antonio to get the lay of the land and meet the players. Boudreaux's hard-boiled voice doesn't always ring true (“As cynical as it sounds, people tell lies”), and most readers will have little trouble figuring out whodunit before the author reveals the answer. (June)

Four extraordinary and resilient youngsters lift George's enjoyable fourth police procedural to feature Pittsburgh homicide chief Richard Christie and his team (after 2007's Afterimage). On loan to another department, detectives Colleen Greer and John Potocki pursue a narcotics investigation that meshes with a drug-related shooting. Meanwhile, the four Philips children—Meg, 13; Joel, 11; Laurie, 10; and Susannah, seven—are trying to cope with the desertion of their stepmother, who had told Meg to wait a couple of days before seeking foster care. Instead, they set about making do with limited resources but unlimited resolve. When Joel runs across a dead man and a wounded man in an abandoned house, the four decide to help the wounded man avoid the law and the drug dealer on his trail. George doesn't neglect the police work as Greer and Potocki effectively chase down clues, but it's the kids who are heroic in a world where few adults can be trusted. (June)

Gregory's excellent fourth Thomas Chaloner adventure set in Restoration London (after 2008's The Butcher of Smithfield) effortlessly blends authentic historical details with plenty of red herrings. Chaloner, the chief spy for England's Lord Chancellor, the earl of Clarendon, is on uncertain ground because of his past support for Oliver Cromwell. The earl increases the pressure by giving Chaloner a tight deadline to solve a series of poisonings that have claimed the lives of two government clerks. Convinced that another clerk, Greene, is responsible, the earl orders Chaloner to prove Greene's guilt, despite the spy's misgivings. Gregory provides a number of false endings, a classic golden age of detection plot device rarely used these days, but which, in the hands of a skilled writer, makes every word count. Gregory is also the author of the Matthew Bartholomew series set in medieval Cambridge (The Devil's Disciples, etc.). (June)

Better known for New Weird fantasies (Perdido Street Station, etc.), bestseller Miéville offers an outstanding take on police procedurals with this barely speculative novel. Twin southern European cities Beszel and Ul Qoma coexist in the same physical location, separated by their citizens' determination to see only one city at a time. Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad roams through the intertwined but separate cultures as he investigates the murder of Mahalia Geary, who believed that a third city, Orciny, hides in the blind spots between Beszel and Ul Qoma. As Mahalia's friends disappear and revolution brews, Tyador is forced to consider the idea that someone in unseen Orciny is manipulating the other cities. Through this exaggerated metaphor of segregation, Miéville skillfully examines the illusions people embrace to preserve their preferred social realities. (June)

Wilson's cliché-laden fantasy debut opens with callow youth Calen fleeing from an unprecedented attack upon his city. He seeks out forestwalker legend Arvan Eleron to help deliver a critical message to the rulers of his land: the attackers are renegade arlic, Minotaur-like creatures who have traditionally been friends of humankind. It's up to Arvan and Prince Rell Krollner to gain the support of the human lands and their remaining arlic allies before the prophesied “Destroyer” arises. Wilson's laughably flawed prose (“He could have sworn he had heard, or felt, someone ask an unanswerable question”) alternates between gratuitous minutiae and insufficient information, easily overpowering a simplistic and hackneyed plot populated with talking animals and a headstrong, rebellious princess. Even the most generous and undiscriminating fantasy readers will find little to like. (June)

The third installment of Van Name's space opera saga (after 2008's Slanted Jack) follows the same basic formula as the previous novels: two-dimensional characters are caught up in a straightforward, breakneck-paced and action-packed story line. Manipulated by a beautiful woman, nano-enhanced adventurer Jon Moore reluctantly participates in a scheme masterminded by the powerful Central Coalition, which wants to locate and abduct Jorge Wei, a scientist performing highly illegal nano research on children. Wei works on the planet Heaven inside of a massive tourist attraction called Wonder Island, a near-impenetrable fortress housing all kinds of bioengineered marvels. As Moore closes in on Wei, his sentient assault vehicle, Lobo, offers up some bombshell revelations that heighten the tension. While some major characters are little more than cardboard cutouts, the pedal-to-the-metal narrative and nonstop action will satisfy most adventure SF fans. (June)

This entertaining collection follows con artist, minister and adventurer Lucifer Jones, last seen in 1992's Exploits, as he travels through South America. Jones, seeking the perfect place to set up his tabernacle, instead finds army ants, diamond thieves and island-dwelling mad scientist Dr. Mirbeau. Along the way, Jones predictably falls for every beautiful woman he meets and winds up in jail a few times as well. The likable scoundrel's mix of lust, chicanery and naïveté moves the action along nicely, and though Resnick pokes fun at pulp adventure tales and the arrogance of early 20th-century imperialism, he never lets mockery interfere with good storytelling. The collection doesn't add much to the genre, but minimal backstory and Jones's engaging narrative voice will endear it to fans of lighthearted adventure stories. (June)

Having wound up his seven-volume space opera, the Saga of Seven Suns, bestseller Anderson moves hesitantly into fantasy with this uninspired series opener. A promising attempt to end a long history of war between the followers of Aiden and Urec, two of the sons of creator-god Ondun, is scuttled when an accidental fire engulfs the city of Ishalem, which occupies the isthmus separating the warring kingdoms. The repercussions of the blaze, which include massacres, betrayals and vicious reprisals, play out over the next 13 years as naval chartsmen guide the kingdoms' sailing ships through the treacherous waters around Ishalem. The details of the cultures and politics add little insight into human nature, and a paucity of fantasy elements gives readers no reason to prefer this tale over its numerous contemporaries. (June)

Starr (The Follower) traces the life of a New York bar bouncer down on his luck in this sinister noir tale. Tommy Russo, an aspiring actor, wants in on the deal of a lifetime: purchasing a racehorse with several other backers. Gambling addict Russo barely has enough money to buy a burger, let alone contribute 10 grand, so he hocks a girlfriend's jewelry and then moves on to stealing from his boss's safe. Russo's gradual spiral down into complete degeneration is so expertly crafted that readers will be shocked to compare the hopeful actor with his final incarnation as hardened criminal. Starr expertly combines elements of hard-boiled crime novels with a dark view of human nature to create a one-of-a-kind, mesmerizing read. (June)

Two devastatingly handsome gentlemen vie for the love of the beautiful Sophie, duchess of Calton, in this debut historical romance, which delivers almost too thoroughly on its heart-tearing premise. Garrett, duke of Calton, returns to England barely recovered from amnesia following the battle of Waterloo and finds that after thinking him dead for eight years, Sophie has married his cousin and best friend, Tristan, now duke in his place. Sophie is torn between her sensual attraction to Tristan and her childhood love for—and legal bond to—Garrett, while the rivalry wrecks the men's lifelong friendship and pulls Sophie's two young children between their warring fathers. Haymore portrays the three so intensely and sympathetically that by the end, all of Sophie's possible choices seem guaranteed to bring misery to the lovers, leaving readers distressed and unsatisfied. (June)

Former trial lawyer Caldwell launches a mystery series that weaves the emotional appeal of her chick lit titles (The Night I Got Lucky) with the blinding speed of her thrillers (The Good Liar). Young, sassy Izzy McNeil, lead entertainment lawyer at Pickett Enterprises, has earned envy for her success (much of which she owes to the patronage of CEO Forester Pickett) and cheeky manner, but she's starting to panic about her upcoming wedding to charming Sam Hollings. Then Pickett is killed and Sam vanishes, as do $30 million worth of Panamanian real estate bonds. Suspecting Sam, Izzy and the FBI promptly take up parallel and sometimes contradictory investigations. The somber ending is something of a letdown after the headlong chase, but readers will be left looking forward to another heart-pounding ride on Izzy's silver Vespa. (June)

In Evans's sparkling debut, mythic “Others” from English folklore must band together to protect their homeland during WWII. When country doctor Alice Doyle encounters a mysterious stranger injured in the woods, his quick recovery and disappearance leave her puzzled. Then a farmer is found dead and drained of blood, trouble brews at a secret munitions plant, and conscientious objector Peter Watson begins making eyes at Alice. Gerhardt Eiche, a Nazi vampire with sabotage and conquest on his mind, hides among villagers and refugees, many of whom—including Alice and Peter—are not quite what they seem. Treating childhood stories of fairy folk as historical records, Evans presents convincing characters in an intriguing story that will have readers eager to dive into Bloody Awful and Bloody Right, due later this summer. (June)

Pekar (American Splendor; Our Cancer Year) adapts Terkel's masterpiece of oral history in this loving tribute. Working features various artists, including Sharon Rudahl (A Dangerous Woman: the Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman), Terry LaBan (Edge City) and frequent Pekar collaborator Gary Dumm (Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History). Though several of Pekar's colleagues have connections with the labor movement or activism, this volume does not push a particular political or social agenda. It simply adds dimension to Terkel's original, illustrating the daily concerns of working men and women. As is typical in collections, some of the pieces are stunning, while others merely adapt the story. Two standouts are “Jack Spiegel: Organizer” and “David Reed Glover: Stockbroker,” perfectly illustrated by Peter Gullerud and Pablo G. Callejo, respectively; Gollerud's stark woodcuts recall the art of the labor movement, while Callejo's meticulous detail and use of shading reflect the claustrophobia of a desk job. This collection will capture the interest of Pekar fans and Terkel aficionados alike, particularly in light of Terkel's death last year. (May)

Created by the Center for Cartoon Studies' director and two of his former students, this how-to-make-comics book for young readers takes a couple of unusual tacks. For one thing, it skips the usual rudiments of how to draw in favor of explaining the formal characteristics of comics: panels, balloons, lettering and so on. For another, it doubles as a story—about a knight on a quest for a bubblegum–chewing dragon, and the magic elf who teaches the knight all about the joy of cartooning. It's a cute premise, and the art's simple, bold brushstrokes and flat colors are zippy and fun. Sturm and company even sneak in a few comics in-jokes (when several characters fall into water, the elf exclaims “I guess this would be called a SPLASH panel!”). Unfortunately, the plot and the tutorial material repeatedly stumble over each other: the goofy twists in the story occasionally have a bit of instruction shoehorned in, but more often don't serve any educational purpose—or simply seem like the result of stream-of-consciousness jam cartooning. And kids looking for cartooning guidance may be frustrated to find that the book takes its readers' ability to draw expressively for granted. (Apr.)

For more than 20 years, various cartoonists have jostled for the title of “spiritual heir to Gary Larson,” the famously weird creator of the groundbreaking strip The Far Side. Web cartoonist Gurewitch is a solid contender for the title. His preferred subject matter certainly tracks Larson: murderous mimes, vengeful T. Rexes and adulterous rolls of coins all make appearances. Gurewitch also enjoys subverting a number of hackneyed cartoon tropes, including cuckolded husbands, mischievous voyeurs and confused Grim Reapers. But it is his exquisite sense of timing that sets him apart as a budding comic genius. Gurewitch has mastered the “soaker,” the joke that stays with the reader for several minutes before finally sinking in, making it all the funnier as a result. As hard as the soaker is to pull off consistently, Gurewitch's timing and supreme confidence in refusing to telegraph punch lines, allows him to hit the mark almost every time. It's particularly instructive to read the appendix “Lost Strips” to see the still funny but broader strips that did not make the cut. He alternates between a number of art styles—all gorgeous; his selection is always in service to the joke. Subtle, sly and deeply, deeply weird, The Perry Bible Fellowship is one of the best comics out there. (Apr.)