November Publications

Wealth and power often come at a price, and forensic pathologist Joanna Blalock, the Crossing Jordan—like heroine of Leonard Goldberg's Brainwaves, knows all too well how deadly that price can be. Noted neurologist Karen Crandell's death is the latest in a string of tragedies that have befallen the Los Angeles Memorial Medical Center, and once again, Joanna and her boyfriend, Detective Jake Sinclair, are on the case. Goldberg (Fatal Care, etc.) devotes the first half of the novel to demonstrating Joanna's brilliance—she flaunts her observational skills while performing an autopsy and upstages a fellow pathologist in the midst of the investigation. Fortunately, the story snowballs when a second doctor turns up dead and an attempt is made on Joanna's life. Goldberg's pedestrian prose impedes the narrative, but his exploration of technologies that can potentially repair, alter and control the brain is both fascinating and frightening. (Signet, $6.99 416p ISBN 0-451-20738-6)

The females in Linda Lael Miller's pleasantly provoking frontier romance, High Country Bride, often insist that the McKettrick men are thick-headed, and Rafe McKettrick, the eldest of the three brothers, proves them right. Forced to take a wife in order to inherit the family ranch, Rafe decides to send for a mail-order bride. He expects to be able to wed and bed her in short order, but strong-willed Emmeline Harding doesn't succumb to his rough-edged charm so readily. Though the two eventually grow to care for one another, secrets from Emmeline's past and Rafe's sheer stupidity threaten to tear them apart. Like the old hand that she is, Miller (The Last Chance Café, etc.) ably portrays the hardscrabble life of the American west and weaves a winding, winsome romance full of likable, if occasionally pigheaded, characters. (Pocket Star, $7.99 448p ISBN 0-7434-2273-2)