October Publications

A sordid betrayal lies at the heart of Ties That Bind, a novel by Brenda Jackson (Family Reunion) spanning 35 years in the lives of two couples who become friends at Howard University in the 1960s. Randolph Fuller's wife, Angela, had to drug him to get him to sleep with her, but in the end she got her way: she became pregnant and forced Randolph to leave his true love, the modest, bookish Jenna. But 12 years later, Randolph and Angela are separated, Jenna conveniently widowed and the old lovers have an opportunity to start over. Jackson also follows the more sedate lives of Randolph's friends Noah and Leigh Wainwright and the various couplings of their offspring. In spite of all the action, the book offers a resounding moral: cheaters and sluts never prosper. (St. Martin's/Griffin, $13.95 paper 368p ISBN 0-312-30611-3)

An unusual hitman, half Australian Aborigine and half white, terrorizes Minneapolis with a series of grotesque ritual killings at the start of Warriors in the Shadows, by Marcus Wynne (No Other Option). Det. Bobby Lee Martaine asks his friend Charley Payne, a former CIA operative, to take forensic photographs, and Payne finds himself drawn in against his will by the curious case. Then Bobby Lee and his wife and son are massacred, and Payne sets off for Australia to track down the killer. Dream sequences and bush magic give this graphic thriller an otherworldly aura, while the killer's links to the international drug trade and Wynne's elaborate descriptions of weaponry lend it a real-world patina. The spiritual element may alienate some readers—and strike others as merely silly—but Wynne develops his characters carefully, lavishing particular attention on his unorthodox antihero. (Forge, $24.95 352p ISBN 0-765-30443-0)