New Fiction Releases
NOvember 2012

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General Fiction . Fantasy & Science Fiction . Mystery & Detective

General Fiction

Aztec Revenge (Aztec)
By Gary Jennings and Junius Podrug
Forced to flee after killing a man who was beating a horse, Juan the Lepero, who hides his mixed heritage to escape life as a beggar, embarks on a series of adventures as a highwayman, horse thief and wealthy caballero before resolving to rescue a man who once saved his life.

The Black Box (Harry Bosch)
By Michael Connelly
Harry Bosch investigates after a bullet from a recent killing is a match for one used in the unsolved murder of a photographer in 1992.

The Bridge
By Karen Kingsbury
Ryan Kelly spends plenty of time at The Bridge, the oldest bookstore in historic downtown Franklin, Tennessee, remembering the times he and Molly Allen once spent there before she moved to Portland.  Now, with the bookstore in deep financial trouble, it will take a miracle to keep tragedy from unfolding.

Cold City (Repairman Jack: The Early Years Trilogy)
By F. Paul Wilson
A first installment in a new prequel trilogy traces the early career of self-styled “fix-it” man Repairman Jack, who, after moving to New York City, establishes relationships with Julio and the Mikulski brothers while investigating a murder, launching a passionate affair and dismantling a child sex slave operation.

Collateral
By Ellen Hopkins
An MFA student who never dreamed she would become a military wife struggles with her love for her boyfriend, a dedicated Marine who has survived multiple deployments to Afghanistan, and her growing resentment over the war that is tearing their lives apart.

The Dark Winter (Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy)
By David Mark
Investigating a series of suspicious deaths and discovering that each victim was the sole survivor of a tragedy, Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy of the northern England port of Hull struggles to balance the demand of the case with the needs of his beloved family.

Dear Life: Stories
By Alice Munro
Set in the countryside and towns of Lake Huron, Munro’s new collection of stories illuminates moments that shape a life, from a dream or a sexual act to simple twists of fate.

Eight Girls Taking Pictures
By Whitney Otto
A sweeping tale inspired by the lives of famous 20th-century female photographers traces the progression of feminism and photography in various world regions as each woman explores private and public goals while balancing the demands of family and creativity.

The Elementals
By Francesca Lia Block
Tackling the challenges of her first years of college while her mother battles cancer at home, Ariel struggles with memories of the best friend who disappeared years earlier and finds unexpected answers in relationships with three seductive residents of an old house in the Berkeley hills.

Flight Behavior
By Barbara Kingsolver
Tired of living on a failing farm and suffering oppressive poverty, bored housewife Dellarobia Turnbow, on the way to meet a potential lover, is detoured by a miraculous event on the Appalachian mountainside that ignites a media and religious firestorm that changes her life forever.

The Giving Quilt (Elm Creek Quilts)
By Jennifer Chiaverini
When the creative residents of Elm Creek gather the week after Thanksgiving to work on quilts for Project Linus, they respond to Sylvia’s provocative questions to alleviate respective personal challenges and learn helpful lessons about the strength of human connections.

Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen
By Mary Sharrat
A tale inspired by the life of the 12th-century abbess, composer and prophet depicts a young girl who, upon being given to the Church, rejects the order’s masochistic piety and finds grace in studying books, growing herbs and rejoicing in divine visions before finding ways to liberate her sisters and herself.

The Labyrinth of Osiris
By Paul Sussman
Detective Arieh-Ben Roi of the Jerusalem police investigates the murder of a well-known Israeli journalist and, with the help of Luxor police detective Yusuf Khalifa, discovers a connection to the mysterious death of a 1930s Egyptologist who had claimed to have uncovered a labyrinth of unfathomable treasures.

The Legend of Broken
By Caleb Carr
An epic account about the kingdom of Broken follows the efforts of a solitary noble soldier to confront legendary medieval adversaries to save a fortress city from internal and external dangers.

The Lighthouse Road
By Peter Geye
In the wilds of early 20th-century Duluth, Minnesota, the orphan son of an immigrant woman tries to build a life for himself and the woman he loves.

The Middlesteins
By Jami Attenberg
Two siblings with very different personalities attempt to take control of their mother’s food obsession and massive weight gain to save her life after their father walks out and leaves her reeling in the Chicago suburbs.

The News from Spain: Seven Variations on a Love Story
By Joan Wickersham
A virtuosic collection of stories that explores the power of love and the impossibility of controlling or understanding it features characters from various times and regions, from Mozart’s 18th-century collaboration with librettist Da Ponte to a 1940s love triangle involving a doctor, a journalist and a President’s wife.

Notorious Nineteen (Stephanie Plum)
By Janet Evanovich
Stephanie tries to track down accused embezzler Geoffrey Cubbin who has vanished without a trace after being hospitalized for emergency surgery.

Noughties
By Ben Masters
Celebrating with his friends the night before his Oxford graduation, Eliot Lamb reluctantly prepares to confront his feelings for a fellow lover of literature while receiving ominous messages from an ex-girlfriend and revealing a tragic long-time secret.

Poseidon’s Arrow (Dirk Pitt Adventures)
By Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler
The high-stakes adventures of the intrepid director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency continues as Pitt and his crew search the world over for a missing essential element of the greatest advance in American naval defense technology.

Power Play (Mack Bedford)
By Patrick Robinson
In a near-future world where Israel and the United States have eliminated nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea, Russia plots an aggressive military campaign against America, prompting U.S. Navy SEAL Mack Bedford to conduct a world-changing defense mission.

Prosperous Friends
By Christine Schutt
Ned and Isabel struggled to find artistic fulfillment while engaging in affairs with both old flames and new objects of desire, until they meet an older artistic couple, Clive and Dinah, who give them a new perspective on what it means to love.

A Season of Angels
By Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer
At Christmas, a graduate student studying in Cape Light falls in love with his complete opposite, while an ailing family matriarch returns to Angel Island to heal a family rift.

Silver Cross
By B. Kent Anderson
A sequel to Cold Gloryfinds history professor Nick Journey and federal agent Meg Tolman investigating a friend’s murder only to uncover a vast conspiracy with ties to France’s support for the Confederacy during the American Civil War, a finding that a dangerous covert group is desperate to keep hidden.

The Stockholm Octavo
By Karen Engellmann
In Stockholm in 1791, self-satisfied bureaucrat Emil Larsson is informed by a fortune teller that, in order to find love and connection, he must first find eight individuals who can help him realize this vision — a search that becomes dangerous when he must pull his country back from rebellion and chaos.

Sweet Tooth
By Ian McEwan
Recruited into MI5 against a backdrop of the Cold War in 1972, Cambridge student Serena Frome, a compulsive reader, is assigned to infiltrate the literacy circle of a promising young writer whose politics align with those of the government, a situation that is compromised when she falls in love with him.

The Testament of Mary
By Colm Tóibín
A provocative imagining of the later years of the mother of Jesus finds her living a solitary existence in Ephesus years after her son’s crucifixion and struggling with guilt, anger and feelings that her son is not the son of God and that His sacrifice was not for a worthy cause.

These Things Happen
By Richard Kramer
Wesley, a 10th grader, tries to navigate through life, despite having divorced parents, a father who has come out as gay and a popular friend who also comes out as gay right after winning a school election.

The Trial of Fallen Angels
By James P. Kimmel
Her happy life shattered when she finds herself covered in blood on a deserted train platform with no memory of what has happened, lawyer and family woman Brek Cuttler is informed that she has died and is invited to join an elite team of lawyers who prosecute and defend souls at the Final Judgment.

Two-Part Inventions
By Lynne Sharon Schwarz
When his concert pianist wife dies suddenly, producer Philip fears the discovery of their fraudulent music recordings and descends into a psychological maelstrom of paranoia while reflecting on their life together, his wife’s remarkable career and his views about truth, marriage and perfection.

The Venice Conspiracy
By Sam Christer
Enlisted by the Italian police to help investigate a series of ritualistic killings, ex-priest Tom Shaman teams up with a rookie detective to trace Venice’s dark history and uncovers a deadly secret at the heart of a priceless mosaic.

Victory at Yorktown
By Newt Gingrich; William R. Forstchen; and Albert S. Hanser
A continuation of the best-selling series that includes Valley Forge finds General Washington ending a three-year stalemate and embarking on a secret 300-mile forced march of his entire army to meet the French navy’s Chesapeake Bay blockade and capture Cornwallis’ entire force.

We Are What We Pretend to Be: The First and Last Works
By Kurt Vonnegut
A posthumous double volume of the influential author’s first and last written works, published to coincide with the 90th anniversary of his birth, includes the bitter satire, Basic Training,and the unfinished final novel, If God Were Alive Today.

The Witch of Babylon
By D. J. McIntosh
A tale inspired by ancient Mesopotamian lore and Baghdad’s infamous summer of 2003 finds Turkish-American art dealer John Madison caught between the respective agendas of his brother and his friend at the same time he is compelled to decipher a sinister biblical prophecy.

Young Philby
By Robert Littell
A work of suspense based on true-life historical characters imagines the early years and long-time Russian allegiance of double agent Kim Philby, whose 1963 defection from Britain’s intelligence service to Moscow exposes the Cambridge Five double agents and raises innumerable questions about his ideals.

Fantasy & Science Fiction
(some titles may also be found in General Fiction)

Bard’s Oath (Dragonlords)
By Joanne Bertin
A sequel to Dragon and Phoenixfinds vengeful master bard Leet fashioning a dark magical harp to enchant dragonlord favorite Raven, an act that raises the suspicions of Linden Rathan, who risks everyone he loves to stop Leet’s society-threatening plot.

Bronze Summer
By Stephen Baxter
In the second book in the Northland Trilogy, the prosperous people of Northland contend with a breach in the Wall by one of the Bronze Age empires.

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance(Miles Vorkosigan)
By Lois McMaster Bujold
Serving as a bodyguard to an attractive young woman being targeted by a criminal syndicate, Komarr staff officer Captain Ivan Vorpatril learns that the woman possesses a dangerous secret capable of dismantling the Barayarran family.

The Cassandra Project
By Jack McDevitt & Mike Resnick
With interest waning in the space program, a public affairs director at NASA reveals a shocking secret about the Apollo 11 mission from 50 years ago.

Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy)
By Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
A fantasy saga set in the same world as the Enduring Flame trilogy, the truth is revealed about elfin Queen Vielissiar Faricarnon and the sacrifices she makes to work unprecedented magic and bond with a dragon.

Flame of Sevenwaters
By Juliet Marillier
Maeve returns to Sevenwaters to find the country in turmoil after Prince Mac Dara’s desperate attempts to return his only son to the Otherworld put innocents in peril.

Ironskin
By Tina Connolly
A tale set in a fey-oppressed alternate world five years after the Great War finds Jane Eliot, a woman forced to wear an iron mask to suppress a scarring fey curse, taking a job as governess to a fey-stricken child and falls in love with her employer, an enigmatic artist who transforms unattractive women into beautiful fey.

Krampus: The Yule Lord
By Gerald Brom
When he stumbles upon a magical bag that belongs to Krampus, the Lord of Yule and the dark enemy of Santa Claus, struggling songwriter Jesse gets an unexpected chance to save his daughter and his own broken dreams, and return wild magic to Boone County, West Virginia.

Only Superhuman
By Christopher Bennett
A tale set in a near-future solar system of genetically engineered super-humans inspired by classic comic book heroes finds Troubleshooter Emerald Blair helping to restore order to unstable space habitats in the Asteroid Belt, only to find her loyalties tested by rivaling factions and her desire to put her powers to good use.

Red Country
By Joe Abercrombie
Resolving to avenge the murders of her siblings, Shy South embarks on a dangerous journey with a pair of oxen and her cowardly stepfather to a frontier town gripped by gold fever and feuds before forging a precarious alliance with an infamous soldier of fortune and his feckless lawyer.

River Road (Sentinels of New Orleans)
By Suzanne Johnson
A second entry in the series that began with Royal Streetcontinues the efforts of wizard sentinel Drusilla Jaco and her partner, Alex Warin, to stop a war between humans and preternaturals in New Orleans, a situation that escalates when a menacing adversary poisons the waters of the Mississippi.

Silhouette (Peacer)
By David Swavely
When his boss rises to become one of the most powerful men in the world as the innovator of an anti-gravity technology in the aftermath of a San Francisco earthquake, Michael Ares struggles to solve the brutal murders of his daughter and best friend only to discover harrowing clues about his own life.

Still Life with Shapeshifter
By Sharon Shinn
Melanie Landon must protect the identity of her shapeshifting half-sister, Anne, when a freelance writer begins snooping while doing research on the existence of the supernatural creatures.

The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury
By Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga
A sequel to Rise of the Governortraces Philip Blake’s ascension as the leader of Woodbury, an elevation marked by his vision about transforming the post-apocalyptic walled-in city to a haven, the resistance of his predecessors and strange scratching sounds that come from his apartment.

Mystery & Detective
(some titles may also be found in General Fiction)

Blood Lance (Medieval Noir)
By Jeri Westerson
Witnessing the apparent suicide of a man who fell from the London Bridge, Crispin Guest investigates suspicions that the victim was actually murdered and discovers links to a powerful religious artifact before his efforts are complicated by the arrival of his friend, Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Buzzard Table(Deborah Knott)
By Margaret Maron
A mysterious ornithologist staying at Mrs. Lattimore’s Victorian home and doing research on Southern vultures seems familiar to Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff’s Deputy Dwight Bryant, especially after a murderer strikes.

City of Saints
By Andrew Hunt
A prize-winning historical mystery set in 1930s Salt Lake City finds a rookie investigator and Mormon family man partnering with a foul-mouthed, vice-ridden former strikebreaker to solve the murder of a beautiful socialite that is complicated by a sheriff’s reelection campaign, a corrupt doctor and a scandalous affair.

A Death in the Small Hours (Charles Lennox)
By Charles Finch
Visiting his uncle’s estate in Somerset for what he hopes will be a quiet working vacation, politician and new father Charles Lenox investigates a series of seemingly small acts of vandalism only to discover a sinister plot by an adversary who may be targeting someone Lenox loves.

A Drop of Chinese Blood(Major Bing)
By James Church
When clues link a beautiful woman’s disappearance to a sensitive mission to deliver an agent across the North Korean border, Bing, a director of state security in a volatile region of China, receives reluctant help from his uncle, Inspector O, to navigate an increasingly complex investigation.

Eleven Pipers Piping (Father Christmas Mysteries)
By C.C. Benison
When a performer at the annual Burns dinner at Thornford Regis is found dead under suspicious circumstances, town vicar Tom Christmas uncovers generations-old secrets in his quest for the truth.

Hard Twisted
By C. Joseph Greaves
A tale based on a true story finds the 13-year-old daughter of a homeless man lured by a charismatic drifter to Depression-era Texas where she is forced to participate in a year-long crime spree that culminates in the notorious Greenville “skeleton murder” trial of 1935.

Hot Stuff(Stuff Mystery)
By Don Bruns
Hired to investigate the murder of a sous chef at a famous restaurant when the police are unable to solve the crime quickly, private investigators James Lessor and Skip Moore are shocked to learn that Skip’s girlfriend, Emily, shared a dark secret with the victim.

Island of Bones(Crowther & Westerman)
By Imogen Robertson
Reclusive anatomist Gabriel Crowther investigates an ancient tomb where an extra body and clues about Crowther’s haunting past are discovered.

Lethal Investments (Oslo Detective)
By K.o. Dahl
Taking place seven years prior to the first book in the series and set against a backdrop of brutal affairs and deceptions, this latest installment finds the Oslo Detectives driven by the rapid 1990s success of the IT boom and investigating the murder of a beautiful software employee.

Looking for Yesterday (Sharon McCone)
By Marcia Muller
Sharon McCone investigates the crime when Caro Warrick, a woman acquitted for the murder of her best friend, is discovered brutally beaten.

Mandarin Gate (Inspector Shan)
By Eliot Pattison
Stumbling across a murder scene on the grounds of an old Buddhist temple, Shan uncovers links to a police cover-up and activities at a new internment camp for Tibetan dissidents and is challenged to protect a key witness and navigate a precarious investigation on both sides of the law.

The Marseille Caper(Sam Levitt)
By Peter Mayle
Unable to resist an exciting job offer in Marseille, Sam and Elena find their happy return to the region’s coastal sunshine and delectable cuisine challenged by an increasingly violent competition for waterfront property.

Moments Captured
By Robert J. Sideman
A tale loosely based on the life of the photographer Edward Muybridge is set in late 19th-century San Francisco and follows the efforts of the ambitious photographer whose obsessive love for an emancipated young dancer is challenged by a corrupt robber baron.

Not Dead Yet (Det. Supt. Roy Grace)
By Peter James
Protecting a Hollywood star during her latest film shoot days after an attempt on her life, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace investigates a seemingly unrelated murder miles away, only to find himself in a desperate race against time to stop a maniacal killer who is obsessed with the actress.

The Prodigal Son(Carmine Delmonico)
By Colleen McCullough
When his cousin reports the theft of a lethal and untraceable toxin, Captain Carmine Delmonico investigates a series of sudden deaths implicating a rising scientist who has been targeted with racism and who Delmonico believes is being framed by a killer in the academic community.

A Question of Identity (Simon Serrailler)
By Susan Hill
When an elderly woman in a housing project is brutally murdered by a culprit who leaves a distinctive sign that is found at subsequent crime scenes, Simon Serailler investigates links to a suspect who disappeared after being acquitted of previous killings.

Return of the Thin Man
By Dashiell Hammett; ed. By Richard Layman
Two previously unpublished novellas that were the basis of the 1930s movies After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man are offered for the first time.

Sacrifice Fly
By Tim O’Mara
Becoming a teacher after an accident ends his promising career as a Brooklyn police officer, Raymond Donne is drawn back into detective work by the disappearance of one of his students, a promising baseball athlete whose father has been found murdered.

Skating on the Edge (Rebecca Robbins)
By Joelle Charbonneau
Stepping away from her turn in a festival dunk tank to assist her grandfather, Rebecca Robbins narrowly escapes the electrocution that ends the life of a roller derby girl, a situation that prompts Rebecca to help the derby girls track down a killer.

A Small Hill to Die On (Penny Brannigan)
By Elizabeth J. Duncan
When the pregnant teenage daughter of a wealthy newcomer to Llanelen is found dead in the nearby woods, spa owner Penny Brannigan investigates the family’s suspicious financial dealings while her paramour, Detective Inspector Davies, tracks down the killer.

Swift Run (Charlie Swift)
By Laura DiSilverio
Assuming the reigns of Swift Investigations while Charlie recovers from a gunshot wound, Gigi Goldman reluctantly tracks down her missing ex-husband, who begs her to take him back at the same time his girlfriend is murdered and Gigi is accused of the crime.

Target Lancer (Nathan Heller)
By Max Allan Collins
When a favor for a friend leads to the murder of a Mafia contact, Nathan Heller, a 1960s private investigator with contacts in the government and mob, uncovers a dire conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.

The Twelve Clues of Christmas
By Rhys Bowen
While serving as an assistant to the hostess of a large Christmas house party in Tiddleton-Under-Lovey, Georgie gets the attention of her retired detective grandfather after dead bodies begin showing up.

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11/2012