New Fiction Releases
October 2012

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General Fiction . Fantasy & Science Fiction . Mystery & Detective

General Fiction

Ancient Light
By John Banville
An actor in the twilight of his career reflects on a poignant first love affair at the age of 15 with his best friend’s mother when he inexplicably lands a role opposite a famous but fragile actress who helps him come to an astonishing realization.

Astray
By Emma Donoghue
The author of Room presents a new collection of short stories featuring a cross-section of society including runaways, drifters, gold miners, counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves from puritan Massachusetts, revolutionary New Jersey and antebellum Louisiana.

Back to Blood
By Tom Wolfe
A colorful cast of residents and visitors to Miami go about their daily activities, both legal and illegal, in this eagerly-awaited novel from the author of The Bonfire of the Vanitiesand The Right Stuff.

Beautiful Lies
By Clare Clark
A tale inspired by the true story of a Liberal MP’s wife who lived a double life for decades follows the experiences of Maribel Campbell, a self-proclaimed Chilean heiress married to a Scottish aristocrat who, in late Victorian London, finds her husband’s career threatened by a notorious journalist’s investigation into her true past.

The Big Exit
By David Carnoy
Completing a prison term and supporting himself by doing impersonations of Frank Sinatra, San Francisco lounge performer Richie Forman is wrongfully implicated in the murder of an ex-best friend who stole his fiancée while Forman was in prison.

Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories
By Sherman Alexie
The author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heavenand the PEN/Faulkner award-winning War Dancescombines his beloved classic short stories with new ones in this anthology that features tales involving donkey basketball leagues, lethal wind turbines and marriage.

The Bone Bed
By Patricia Daniels Cornwell
Receiving a grisly communication in the wake of an eminent Canadian paleontologist’s disappearance, Kay Scarpetta investigates the discovery of a body in Boston Harbor and clues about other unsolved cases, a situation that makes Scarpetta wonder who she can trust.

Centurion (Roman Legion)
By Simon Scarrow
The adventures of centurions Marco and Cato take them to the Eastern edges of the Empire in the first century AD, where the peace and safety of Rome are threatened by a takeover attempt by a long-standing enemy.

The Cursing Mommy’s Book of Days
By Ian Frazier
A humorous look at the daily life of a married mother of two shows how she vents her frustrations through artful swearing, imbibing wine and the keeping of a daybook where she attempts to offer tips on how to do various domestic tasks.

A Dangerous Inheritance: A Novel of Tudor Rivals and the Secret of the Tower
By Alison Weir
A tale inspired by the life of Lady Jane Gray’s younger sister, Katherine, interweaves the tragic story of her imprisonment in the Tower of London with the fates of three other innocent political prisoners including Kate Plantagenet and boy princes Edward and Richard.

Dick Francis’s Bloodline
By Felix Francis
Suspecting a fixed race when his successful jockey sister comes in third in a competition she could have won, television presenter Mark Shillingford has an explosive argument with his sister and is shocked when she dies in an apparent suicide hours later.

Fear Itself
By Andrew Rosenheim
A thriller set in the ambivalent Depression-era years before World War II finds a fledgling FBI Special Agent dispatched to infiltrate the pro-Nazi German-American Bund organization and discovering a sinister plot targeting the White House.

Finding Casey
By Jo-Ann Mapson
Preparing for the birth of an unexpected, late-in-life baby, Santa Fe newlywed Glory Vigil spends time with her adopted college-age daughter, Juniper, who has fallen in love and is haunted by memories of a sister who disappeared years earlier.

Founders: A Novel of the Coming Collapse
By James Wesley Rawles
A former U.S. Army intelligence officer and editor of SurvivalBlog.com returns readers to the post-apocalyptic world of Patriots, where a full-scale socioeconomic breakdown has eliminated all legal and technological infrastructure and subjected the world’s survivors to constant violence and chaos.

The Geneva Trap (Liz Carlyle)
By Stella Rimington
When a Russian intelligence officer insists on speaking to no one but her about cyber sabotage that has brought down a U.S. communications satellite, MI5 agent Liz Carlyle learns of a plot to hack into the West’s military and begins a race against time to stop a mole who would reignite the Cold War.

Goldberg Variations
By Susan Isaacs
An aging business owner evaluates her grandchildren as possible successors to her multi-million-dollar beauty empire, including New York movie studio editor Daisy; womanizing sports PR representative Matt; and religious Legal Aid lawyer Raquel.

Golden Dawn
By Thomas M. Kostigen
An apocalyptic plot by an Iranian leader exploits an ancient prophecy about the end of time to further a nuclear weapons program.

The Greatcoat: A Ghost Story
By Helen Dunmore
When a lonely English housewife in 1952 falls asleep under an old RAF greatcoat discovered in a closet of her new home, the garment’s owner suddenly appears.

Have You Seen Marie?
By Sandra Cisneros
A richly illustrated, lyrical fable about loss, grief and healing by the American Book Award-winning author of The House on Mango Streetfollows the transformative efforts of 53-year-old Sandra to find her friend’s missing cat in the aftermath of her own mother’s death.

The Heart Broke In
By James Meek
Reality-show producer and habitual liar Ritchie Shephard can’t stand his sister Bec’s relentless honesty, while Bec helps a gene-therapy researcher build a family of his own, even as her ex-fiancé Val, a tabloid editor, plots to destroy Bec by exposing people close to her.

The Hot Country
By Robert Olen Butler
While covering the Mexican Civil War, a newspaper correspondent, Kit, falls in love with a young laundress and enlists the help of a pickpocket to determine who shot a priest.

How I Came to Sparkle Again
By Kaya McLaren
Three people in the ski town of Sparkle, Colorado, search for hope and love after painful losses, including a woman who discovered her husband’s infidelity after a miscarriage, a woman whose best romantic prospect is a ski bum and a girl who longs for messages from her cancer victim mother.

In Sunlight and In Shadow
By Mark Helprin
Returning home after serving in World War II to run his family business in New York, paratrooper Harry Copeland falls in love with young singer and heiress Catherine Thomas Hale, who risks everything to break off her engagement to another man.

An Irish Country Wedding (Irish Country)
By Patrick Taylor
Resolving to handle his usual round of eccentric patients before marrying his sweetheart, Dr. O’Reilly of the colorful Ulster village of Ballybucklebo helps clear the name of a pigeon-hunting cat and encourages a promising student while his assistant, Barry, considers a romance with a politically outspoken teacher.

It’s Fine by Me
By Per Petterson
In Oslo, Arvid Jansen befriends another boy, Audun, who refuses to talk at first, always wears sunglasses, is obsessed with Jack London and Ernest Hemingway and yearns to be free of school’s shackles.

The Last Man (Mitch Rapp)
By Vince Flynn
When a CIA black ops master with ties to disreputable figures in the Islamic Republic goes missing, Mitch Rapp is ordered to track down the missing man at all costs and finds himself enmeshed in a dangerous plot involving the interests of numerous countries.

The Lawgiver
By Herman Wouk
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such classics as War and Remembrancepresents a tale told through correspondence, articles and text messages that trace the efforts of a group of movie makers, including a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father’s strict upbringing to create a movie about the life of Moses.

Live by Night
By Dennis Lehane
In 1926 during the Prohibition, Joe Coughlin defies his strict law-and-order upbringing by climbing a ladder of organized crime that takes him from Boston to Cuba where he encounters a dangerous cast of characters who are all fighting for their piece of the American dream.

Luther: The Calling
By Neil Cross
A prequel to the acclaimed BBC series introduces Detective Chief Inspector John Luther while offering insight into the personal torments that drive him beyond the limits of the law.

Mad River (Virgil Flowers)
By John Sandford
When three teenagers with dead-end prospects begin a Bonnie-and-Clyde killing and robbery spree through rural Minnesota and send footage of some of their exploits to a local television station, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers joins a growing number of cops trying to stop them only to encounter a shocking turn of events.

The Map of the Sky
By Felix J. Palma
When a New York socialite challenges her millionaire suitor to reproduce the extraterrestrial invasion featured in Wells’ War of the Worlds, three fantastical adventures in time travel and mystery ensue, replete with cameos by such figures as a young Edgar Allan Poe, Captain Shackleton and Charles Winslow from The Map of Time.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
By Robin Sloan
After a layoff during the economic downturn sidelines his tech career, Clay Jannon takes a job at the titular bookstore in San Francisco and soon realizes that the establishment is a façade for a strange secret.

Mrs. Queen Takes the Train
By William Kuhn
When Queen Elizabeth, disguised in a skull-emblazoned hoodie, sneaks out of Buckingham Palace to escape her duties for a little while, an unlikely sextet of royal attendants team up to find their missing monarch and bring her back before her absence sets off a national scandal.

My Last Empress
By Da Chen
Falling passionately in love with his headmaster’s daughter, Samuel Pickens is devastated by her untimely death a month later and becomes convinced that her spirit will not rest until it is returned to her childhood home in 19th-century imperial China, where Pickens accepts employment from a powerless emperor and becomes enamored of a concubine who strongly resembles his lost love.

NYPD Red
By James Patterson and Marshall Karp
Detective Zach Jordan investigates a series of brutal, public crimes that coincide with the arrival of dozens of glamorous celebrities in town for parties and premieres.

Panorama City
By Antoine Wilson
Self-described “slow absorber” Oppen Porter records everything he thinks his unborn son will find useful in becoming a man of the world.

The Panther
By Nelson DeMille
An anti-terrorist task force agent and his FBI agent wife search for the mastermind behind the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

Peaches for Father Francis
By Joanne Harris
The best-selling author of Chocolat continues the story of Vianne, who returns to the French village of Lansquenet with her daughters before allying herself with a desperate Father Frances Reynaud to reverse disturbing local changes.

People of the Black Sun: A People of the Longhouse Novel (North America’s Forgotten Past)
By W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear
A conclusion to the epic series featuring Dekanawida the Peacemaker finds the growing League of the Great Law of Peace threatened by marauding warriors from the People of the Mountain, who are urged by Dekanawida to join the League in order to save their shared world.

The Racketeer
By John Grisham
When a Federal judge and his secretary fail to appear for a scheduled trial and panicked clerks call for an FBI investigation, a harrowing murder case ensues and culminates in the imprisonment of a lawyer who imparts the story of who killed the judge and why.

Rapture (Fallen Angels)
By J. R. Ward
Mels Carmichael helps a mysterious stranger claiming to be a fallen angel after hitting him with her car outside a nearby cemetery.

The Sanctuary
By Ted Dekker
Serving time for murdering two abusive men, vigilante priest Danny Hansen must escape from prison after the woman he loves receives a threatening note and a box containing a bloody finger.

Say You’re Sorry
By Michael Robotham
Joe O’Loughlin investigates the murder of a married couple during a horrible London blizzard and doesn’t believe the troubled young man who reported the killings, yet couldn’t explain why he was at the crime scene, is really the killer.

Sea Glass Summer
By Dorothy Cannell
Recent divorcee Sarah Draycott moves to picturesque Sea Glass Village where she helps a widow cope with her ailing son, assists a 9-year-old orphan in uncovering the secrets surrounding the mysterious Cully Mansion and soon finds love when she least expects it.

The Secret Keeper
By Kate Morton
Withdrawing from a family party to the solitude of her tree house, 16-year-old Laurel Nicolson witnesses a shocking murder that, throughout a subsequent half-century, shapes her beliefs, her acting career and the lives of three strangers from vastly different cultures.

The Shadow Girls
By Henning Mankell
Ordered by his editor to write a crime novel to reignite his stalled career, poet Jesper Humlin reluctantly travels to Gothenburg where three unlikely pupils of an impromptu writing workshop draw him into their culturally driven, compelling worlds.

Silent House
By Orhan Pamuk
Awaiting the annual summer arrival of her grandchildren in her fishing village home outside Istanbul, bed-ridden widow Fatma shares memories and grievances with her late doctor husband’s illegitimate son until his cousin, a fervent right-wing nationalist, involves the family in the Turkish military coup of 1980.

The Sins of the Mother
By Danielle Steel
Having missed much of her children’s lives while she built a legendary home-furnishings empire, Olivia Grayson arranges the latest annual family vacation in the Mediterranean in the hopes of rekindling ties, only to confront painful interpersonal dynamics and unexpected revelations.

Sleep No More (Eve Duncan)
By Iris Johansen
Entreated by her mother to help find a missing woman who has escaped from a mental hospital, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan is shocked to discover the woman’s true identity and enlists the help of rogue FBI profiler Kendra Michaels to survive a plot by a killer who is targeting her family.

Stonemouth
By Iain Banks
Stewart Gilmour must confront his past when he returns to Stonemouth, Scotland, for the funeral of a local patriarch during a supposed temporary truce between crime families.

Sutton
By J.R. Moehringer
This clever imagining of the surprise pardon of Willie Sutton, one of the most notorious criminals in American history, on Christmas Eve in 1969, traces the remarkable life of this mysterious man, who was known to police as the Babe Ruth of Bank Robbers, and his doomed, dangerous romance with his first love.

Tier One Wild (Delta Force)
By Dalton Fury
Former disgraced Delta Force commander Kolt “Racer” Raynor tackles the most dangerous mission of his career when an American al Qaeda commander organizes a terrorist team and amasses stores of deadly weapons with the intent of shooting down American aircraft.

Toby’s Room
By Pat Barker
In an epic tale that explores the poignant experiences of family members and working-class people who support them, this portrait of an upper-class family torn by World War I centers on an anguished sister whose beloved brother goes missing in action.

The Twelve (Passage Trilogy)
By Justin Cronin
A follow-up to the best-selling The Passagecontinues the efforts of survivors of a government-induced apocalypse to endure their violent and disease-stricken world while protecting their loved ones.  Meanwhile, a century into the future, members of a transformed society determinedly search for the original twelve virals.

White Forest
By Adam McOmber
A young woman from the wild heath regions of Victorian England has an unusual paranormal ability to see the souls of handcrafted objects that helps her infiltrate a mysterious dream-manipulation cult that has recruited the man she loves.

Wicked Pleasures
By Penny Vincenzi
A saga set throughout the latter half of the 20th century traces a mega-wealthy family’s efforts to orchestrate respective agendas from their Hamptons summer homes and English countryside manor, while a brother and two sisters discover that they all have different fathers.

The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next)
By Jasper Fforde
Forced into semi-retirement after an assassination attempt, Thursday Next finds her recuperation challenged by the personal and professional struggles of her children and Goliath’s constant attempts to replace her with synthetic duplicates.

A Working Theory of Love
By Scott Hutchins
While working on what he hopes will be the world’s first sentient computer, Neill Bassett tries to deal with unresolved feelings for his ex-wife as well as cope with an intended one-night-stand that is turning into a much more demanding relationship.

Zoo Time
By Howard Jacobsen
In awe of his strikingly beautiful, highly strung wife and her equally volatile mother, novelist Guy Ableman finds his work persistently interrupted by their drama and dreams of squeezing out one more great book in spite of growing fears that reading is a cultural activity of the past.

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

1635: Papal Stakes (Ring of Fire)
By Eric Flint and Charles E. Gannon
Held hostage by a papal usurper, 1635 uptimer Frank Stone and his pregnant downtime wife, Giovanna, become targets in a rescue effort by Harry Lefferts and his infamous Wrecking Crew at the same time the true pope is targeted for assassination.

Bowl of Heaven
By Gregory Benford and Larry Niven
A human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by the discovery of an immense bowl-shaped structure in space that leads to hostile alien encounters and profound revelations about humanity’s place in the universe.

Dark Currents (Agent of Hel)
By Jacqueline Carey
Daisy Johnson, whose father was an incubus, works in the Midwestern town of Pemkowet, where she ensures that all the supernatural creatures living there get along.

Daughter of Light (The Kindred)
By V. C. Andrews
A sequel to Daughter of Darknessfinds Lorelei escaping from the vampire world of her early life and struggling to follow her heart and hide from the past in spite of terrifying nightmares and the constant threat of her powerful and vindictive father.

The Fifty Year Sword
By Mark Z. Danielewski
Lyrical text and evocative sketch art are combined in a ghost story involving five orphans who gather at a party at an East Texas ranch house and listen to the tale of a mysterious latched box that is linked to a violent plot for revenge.

Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (Charley Davidson)
By Darynda Jones
Hoping to take time off after a discouraging case, grim reaper Charley reluctantly assists a woman who is convinced someone is trying to kill her in spite of everyone’s claims that she is insane, a situation that is complicated by Rayes Farrow’s absence and arsonist attacks in Albuquerque.

The Hydrogen Sonata
By Iain Banks
Suspected of involvement after the Regimental High Command is destroyed as they prepared to go to a new level of existence called Sublime, Lieutenant Commander Vyr Cossont must find a nine-thousand-year-old man in order to clear her name.

Iced (Dani O’Malley)
By Karen Marie Moning
A first entry in a new urban paranormal trilogy set in the world of the author’s popular “Fever” series finds Dani O’Malley using rare talents and the powerful Sword of Light to survive Dark Fae attacks in Dublin, where she also is challenged by a murderous former friend and a police force head who covets her sword.

Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond
By Kim Harrison
This collection of short works starring bounty hunter and witch Rachel Morgan sheds new light on the “Hollows” saga and includes “Two Ghosts for Sister Rachel,” a novella from Holidays from Hell.

Little Star
By John Ajvide Lindqvist
Rescuing and raising an abandoned baby girl in the woods, a man enters the child in a singing competition when she develops an astonishingly beautiful voice, a performance that leads to the girl’s encounter with another youngster with whom she triggers a horrifying force.

Merge/Disciple: Two Short Novels from Crosstown to Oblivion
By Walter Mosley
Two speculative tales by the best-selling author of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grayinclude Merge, in which a heartbroken lottery winner discovers true joy through an otherworldly entity; and Disciple, in which a dead-end employee is rendered a pawn in an evil plot against the life forces on Earth.

Monster Hunter Legion (Monster Hunter)
By Larry Correia
When hunters from around the world gather in Las Vegas for a conference, Owen Pitt and the staff of Monster Hunter International have to stop an ancient god from turning Sin City into a literal hell on earth.

Red Rain
By R. L. Stine
A writer on a small island off the coast of South Carolina barely escapes a hurricane and impulsively adopts a pair of twin boys against the wishes of her family before encountering the twins’ sinister natures.

Redoubt: A Valdemar Novel
By Mercedes Lackey
Mags, a young Herald trainee in Haven, is trained as a spy to uncover secrets held by a mysterious new enemy of the kingdom of Valdemar.

Something Red
By Douglas Nicholas
Leading a troupe of companions across the mountains of 13-century northwest England to find shelter from the coldest winter in memory, middle-aged Irishwoman Molly gradually realizes that they are being followed by a mysterious evil force that must be faced and defeated if they are to survive.

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It
By David Wong
A sequel to John Dies at the Endfinds heroes David and John embroiled in a new set of horrific but absurd challenges when movie-induced zombie phobia enables a nefarious shape-shifter race to take over the world.

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

Beluga
By Rick Gavin
Launching a money laundering and lending operation after outwitting a meth dealer, Nick Reid and his partner, Desmond, reluctantly participate in a former in-law’s scheme involving a trailer full of stolen tires, which pits them against a ninja schoolgirl assassin and a pair of Delta gangsters.

The Blackhouse
By Peter May
When a grisly murder occurs on a Scottish island, Edinburgh detective Fin Macleod must confront his past if he is ever going to discover if the killing has a connection to another one that took place on the mainland.

The Chocolate Moose Motive
By Joanna Carl
Lee’s newest hire at the chocolate shop, Forsythia “Sissy” Smith, has the court of public opinion against her in her husband’s murder, despite having a solid alibi.

A Christmas Garland
By Anne Perry
Set in 1857 India, a latest holiday story by the best-selling author of The Sheen on the Silkfollows the first assignment of a young Victor Narraway who, with the help of two small children and a Christmas garland, defends a British medical orderly throughout a murder investigation.

The Cutting Season
By Attica Locke
When the dead body of a young woman is found on the grounds of Belle Vie, the estate’s manager, Caren Gray, launches her own investigation into Belle Vie’s history, which leads her to a centuries-old mystery involving the plantation’s slave quarters – and her own past.

Death in the Floating City (Lady Emily Mystery)
By Tasha Alexander
Entreated for help by a childhood nemesis who has been wrongly accused of murder, Lady Emily launches an investigation in Venice that takes her from elegant palaces to slums, libraries and bordellos before she links the crime to an ancient puzzle.

Death on Telegraph Hill (Sarah Woolson Mystery)
By Shirley Tallman
Returning from an evening spent listening to a young Oscar Wilde in 1882 San Francisco, crusading young lawyer Sarah Woolson and her brother, Samuel, are targeted in the fog by a gunman who strikes Samuel, prompting Sarah’s investigation into the shooter’s identity and intended victim.

A Fatal Winter (Max Tudor)
By G. M. Malliet
An investigation into two deaths at Chedrow Castle by former MI5 agent and Anglican priest Max Tudor is complicated by his growing attraction to Awena Owen and the arrival of a raucous group of greedy relatives.

Fox Tracks (Sister Jane Arnold Foxhunting Mystery)
By Rita Mae Brown
Sister Jane Arnold Foxhunting tracks clues during an outbreak of crimes related to the world of competitive hunting and the tobacco industry.

Invisible Murder (Nina Borg Mystery)
By Lene Kaaberbol and Agnette Friis
Red Cross nurse Nina Borg risks her marriage to assist her friend Peter at a camp of mysteriously ill Roma refugee children whose circumstances prove more complicated and dangerous than originally believed.

The Jewels of Paradise
By Donna Leon
A Venetian woman with a doctorate in baroque opera must determine the rightful ownership of two locked trunks belonging to a famous composer who has been dead for centuries.

The Old Gray Wolf
By James D. Doss
Accidentally causing the death of a purse snatcher with ties to the mob, tribal investigator and Colorado rancher Charlie Moon and his friend, Chief of Police Scott Parris, are targeted by the thief’s vengeful family in a case that is complicated by FBI meddling and a rookie private investigator.

Paradise City (Joe Gunther)
By Archer Mayor
Investigating a series of seemingly unrelated burglaries targeting high-end electronics and antiques, Joe Gunther and his team discover ties between their case, the murder of an elderly woman from Boston, and the activities of a powerful purchaser of stolen goods.

Phantom (Harry Hole)
By Jo Nesbø
Determined to prove the innocence of a young man he helped raise, disgraced former cop Harry embarks on an increasingly dangerous investigation linked to Oslo’s most virulent street drug.

Postcards from the Dead
By Laura Childs
After postcards signed by a murdered reporter begin showing up at her store, scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand searches for the killer.

Rest for the Wicked (Jane Lawless)
By Ellen Hart
Receiving an urgent message from hospitalized partner Andy Nolan’s nephew, who is killed minutes later, restaurateur and private investigator Jane Lawless embarks on a solo quest to identify the culprit and the victim’s link to other killings.

Salvation of a Saint
By Keigo Higashino
When a man about to leave his wife is found murdered and the wife has a too-convenient alibi that convinces a smitten lead detective of her innocence, Professor Manabu Yukawa is tapped by a concerned Kaoru Utsumi to solve a seemingly impossible case.

The Snow White Christmas Cookie (Berger and Mitry)
By David Handler
A blizzard-marked first Dorset Christmas for Des Mitry is overshadowed by the drug-related death of Mitch’s neighbor, a shoplifting Kylie and a mail thief whose activities are linked to a prescription drug gang.

The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds (Isabel Dalhousie)
By Alexander McCall Smith
Investigating the theft of a valuable painting that was supposed to be donated to the Scottish National Gallery, Isabel harbors a growing suspicion that the thieves may be close to the painting’s wealthy owner.

What the Cat Saw (Nela Farley)
By Carolyn G. Hart
A woman able to understand the thoughts of cats becomes an unwitting investigator when her sister’s co-worker is murdered and the only witness was her beloved feline.

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9/2012