Prepub Alert, March 15, 2011
Mar 15, 2011PREPUB ALERT NOW ONLINE
Barbara Hoffert’s Prepub Alert is now online (blog.libraryjournal.com/prepubalert). The online edition, which posts every Monday, previews more titles one month earlier than the print edition. Going forward, book reviews that reference Prepub Alert will cite the online edition. Sign up for free weekly alerts to the online edition at bit.ly/g2UqaT.
FICTION
Armstrong, Kelley. Spell Bound. Dutton. (Other World, Bk. 12). Jul. 2011. 400p. ISBN 9780525952206. $25.95. Digital download: Penguin Audio.
Bad news for the witch Savannah Levine. Having sworn off magic, she’s pretty helpless when a bunch of witch-hunting assassins and half-demons strike while she’s stuck on the road. Ten years after debuting with Bitten, Armstrong gathers favorite characters from her No. 1 New York Times best sellers—among them Elena, Clay, Paige, Lucas, Jamie, and Hope—for a grand bash-up (but not, it seems, a grand finale). Buy multiples where Armstrong is popular.
Baker, Nicholson. House of Holes: A Book of Raunch. S. & S. Aug. 2011. 288p. ISBN 9781439189511. $25; eISBN 9781439189535.
After 2008’s nonfiction Human Smoke and 2009’s The Anthologist, Baker returns to the fruitful territory of his edgily erotic Vox and The Fermata. This one, about a world in which every carnal desire imagined can be easily satisfied, is billed as a modern-day Hieronymus Boschian bacchanal. I’m probably too modest to read this, but it will have lots of takers.
Box, C.J. Back of Beyond. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Aug. 2011. 400p. ISBN 9780312365745. $25.99. CD: Macmillan Audio.
After his AA sponsor is found burned to a crisp in a desolate cabin, cop Cody Hoyt sees evidence of foul play and starts looking for the killer. Clues point to an outfitter who conducts tourists on horseback through Yellowstone. Alas, Hoyt’s son Justin is on such a trip right now. With this stand-alone, Box takes a break from his best-selling Joe Pickett novels, but as he’s won Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, Barry, and Prix Calibre 39 awards, still think multiples.
Close, Jennifer. Girls in White Dresses. Knopf. Aug. 2011. 304p. ISBN 9780307596857. $24.95; eISBN 9780307700414.
These girls are bridesmaids who can’t quite get things right. Isabella is acing her job but nevertheless loathes it, Mary adores a guy who adores only his mother, and Lauren finds herself attracted to someone who’s definitely not her type. This novel of modern-day manners from first timer Close must have impressed someone; there’s a 75,000-copy first printing. Stay tuned.
Collins, Max Allan. Bye Bye, Baby. Forge: Tor. Aug. 2011. 352p. ISBN 9780765321794. $24.99.
Threatened with firing by Twentieth Century Fox, Marilyn Monroe hires P.I. Nate Heller to tap her phone so that she will have a record of all her calls. That’s when he realizes that everyone—the CIA, the FBI, the Soviets, the Mafia, the Kennedys—is interested in Marilyn. And then she ends up dead. This is the first new Nate Heller novel in a decade (two previous Heller titles have won Shamuses) and should be of interest to both mystery and Marilyn fans.
Doetsch, Richard. Untitled. Atria: S. & S. Aug. 2011. 352p. ISBN 9781416598985. $25; eISBN 9781439109670.
In the fourth “Thieves” thriller, retired thief Michael St. Pierre ends up in China with ex-girlfriend KC Ryan, each charged by a U.S. Army colonel with stealing a near-mystical artifact. Then they discover that the really important thing to find is an ancient diary with reputedly extraordinary powers. Sounds juicy; remember that the author is also responsible for the striking The 13th Hour.
Fossum, Karin. Bad Intentions. Houghton Harcourt. Aug. 2011. 224p. ISBN 9780547483344. $24; eISBN 9780547519425.
First a young man in psychiatric treatment is found floating in Dead Water Lake, even though both his psychiatrist and a fellow patient declare that he was on the mend. Then a dead Vietnamese immigrant surfaces, and Inspector Konrad Sejer knows he’s on to something bad. This latest in the Inspector Sejer series from redoubtable Norwegian author Fossum is for all readers of crime fiction.
Garwood. Julie. The Ideal Man. Dutton. Aug. 2011. 352p. ISBN 9780525952251. $26.95.
Too bad Dr. Ellie Sullivan saw that FBI agent gunned down by a Bonnie and Clyde–like couple called the Landrys; they always make sure that anyone who can identify them remains silent. So agent Max Daniels is responsible for assuring Ellie’s well-being. And that’s not all. Garwood is a top romance seller—her last hardcover debuted at No. 4 on the New York Times best sellers list—and this will get big Romance Writers of America/Romantic Times promotion. Buy wherever romance is hot.
Hoffman, Paul. The Last Four Things. Dutton. Aug. 2011. 400p. ISBN 9780525952183. $25.95. Digital download: Penguin Audio.
Death, then judgment, then heaven or hell. That’s what the warrior-monks called the Redeemers are anticipating, as they train a horde of child slaves for a battle meant to end humankind. Thomas Cale was their protégé, but in The Left Hand of God , the first book in this trilogy, he escaped. Now he’s suffered the fate of every teenager—a broken heart—while wrestling with a newfound talent for violence. The first in the series, much touted and an international best seller, was hot here if not quite as hot here as expected; buy if the first one did well for you.
Horrocks, Caitlin. This Is Not Your City: Stories. Sarabande. Jul. 2011. 224p. ISBN 9781932511918. pap. $15.95.
Not a blockbuster, but this book really intrigues me; Horrocks recently won the $10,000 Plimpton Prize, given each year by the Paris Review for the best work by an emerging writer to appear in its pages. Judging from a few pieces, her writing is forthright and unfussy but with unsettling little shadows: a woman on a cruise ship held by pirates writes postcards her disabled son will never read, for instance. Read if you want to know who’s coming.
Jones, Darynda. Second Grave on the Left. St. Martin’s. Aug. 2011. 320p. ISBN 9780312360818. $21.99. CD: Macmillan Audio.
As we learned in First Grave on the Right , winner in manuscript of the RWA 2009 Golden Heart for Best Paranormal Romance, P.I. Charley Davidson works part-time as a grim reaper, escorting the recently deceased upward. Here, she tracks down a missing woman while contending with love-interest Reyes, who happens to be the son of Satan and who’s currently left his body behind. Seems that he’d like to avoid being tortured by demons wanting to use him to get to Charley, whom they see as a stepping stone to heaven. First Grave got some nice reviews, and this is getting a nice push, so listen up for fans who like fantasy, romance, and a bit of humor.
Kenyon, Sherrilyn. Retribution. St. Martin’s. Aug. 2011. 448p. ISBN 9780312546595. $25.99.
When hired gun Jess Brady is killed, he’s brought back by a Greek goddess as a Dark-Hunter, sworn to protect humans. Now he’s up against Abigail Yager, who has been raised by Dark-Hunter-hating vampires after being orphaned and who is out for vengeance, convinced that Brady killed her family. In fact, she looks rather like the person who killed him initially. Kenyon has claimed the top spot on the New York Times best sellers list 12 times in only the past two years. With a one-day laydown on August 2 and a national tour; buy multiples.
Krueger, William Kent. Northwest Angle. Atria: S. & S. Aug. 2011. 320p. ISBN 9781439153956. $25; eISBN 9781439172162.
Star of a series that includes the recent best-selling Vermilion Drift, Cork O’Connor is enjoying a houseboat vacation with his daughter on Lake of the Woods when a violent storm forces them to seek shelter on an island. There they discover the body of a teenage girl and a baby boy who’s alive, if whimpering. Soon someone or something is chasing them to a remote area called Northwest Angle. Dependably scary stuff from award winner Krueger.
Lippman, Laura. The Most Dangerous Thing. Morrow. Aug. 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780061706516. $NA.
Best friends who grew apart as they grew up reunite when one of them, the guy who never made good, ups and dies. No surprises there—except that the friends shared a nasty secret that someone has obviously spilled. And with Lippman at the helm, turning in a stand-alone, this should be absorbing indeed.
McCrumb, Sharyn. The Ballad of Tom Dooley. St. Martin’s. Aug. 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780312558178. $24.99.
In the late 1860s, former Confederate soldier Tom Dula was executed for the murder of fiancée Lucy Foster. He steadfastly denied his guilt, and there is evidence that Ann Melton, Dula’s former lover, who had married, was either an accomplice or the actual killer. The story has become a legend, a song (performed memorably by the Kingston Trio, with a name change), and now a work of fiction. Author of the ballad novels, which celebrate Appalachian culture, McCrumb has ongoing appeal.
Millhauser, Steven. We Others: New and Selected Stories. Knopf. Aug. 2011. 400p. ISBN 9780307595904. $27.95; eISBN 9780307701435.
Selected stories ranging across three decades plus new works like the novella-length title story; a good mix for anyone who wants to get acquainted (or reacquainted) with Pulitzer Prize winner Millhauser. For literate readers everywhere.
Otsuka, Julie. The Buddha in the Attic. Knopf. Aug. 2011. 144p. ISBN 9780307700001. $22; eISBN 9780307700469. CD: Random Audio.
In her widely admired debut novel, When the Emperor Was Divine , Otsuka portrayed the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Here she retreats a few steps, following a group of Japanese women who travel to early 1900s San Francisco as mail-order brides. Given the success of Emperor, it’s no surprise that this new work is getting a 75,000-copy first printing, a reading group guide, and a seven-city tour. I’m looking forward to this one.
Patterson, James & Marshall Karp. Kill Me If You Can. Little, Brown. Aug. 2011. 416p. ISBN 9780316097543. $27.99. lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio.
During an attack on New York’s Grand Central Station, hard-up art student Matthew Bannon finds a bag containing $13 million worth of diamonds and takes it. (What’s wrong, he hasn’t read any thrillers about what happens to the guy who makes off with loot that isn’t his?) Soon he’s being trailed by the Ghost, an assassin who just rubbed out a high-ranking member of the Diamond Syndicate and was supposed to retrieve the gems. And he’s being trailed by a rival assassin. Yet another biggie. Interesting tidbit: Patterson was the first writer in the world to sell one million ebooks.
Pelecanos, George. The Cut. Reagan Arthur Bks: Little, Brown. Aug. 2011. 304p. ISBN 9780316078429. $25.99. CD: Hachette Audio.
Home from Iraq, Spero Lucas has been handling investigations for a defense attorney, specializing in stolen property. When a big-time crime boss asks him to find out who’s been pilfering from his operation, Spero accepts—and gets in over his head. Pelecanos introduces a new hero in a new series of interest to all thriller fans.
Perrotta, Tom. The Leftovers. St. Martin’s. Aug. 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780312358341. $25.99.
No, not dinner; the “leftovers” are the folks who didn’t depart when a Rapture-like event empties cushy suburban Mapleton of 100 people. The leftovers are feeling pretty abandoned, and the new mayor is trying to help them get over it, but his wife has joined a cult, his son is following a prophet named Holy Wayne, and his daughter is not exactly her sweet, happy self. Perrotta excels at nailing the angst of Middle America, so this should be good.
Reece, Gordon. Mice. Viking. Aug. 2011. 336p. ISBN 9780670022847. $24.95. Digital download: Penguin Audio.
“We were mice, after all. We weren’t looking for a home. We were looking for a place to hide.” Teenaged Shelley is being bullied, her mom is newly divorced, and they’ve fled to a remote cottage. Then an unwanted guest arrives. Debut novelist Reece, born in the UK and currently living in Australia, has published several illustrated children’s books but is now trying out adult fiction. A pretty big push from the publisher, and I’m intrigued.
Reichs, Kathy. Flash and Bones. Scribner. Aug. 2011. 320p. ISBN 9781439102411. $26.99; eISBN 9781439112809. CD: S. & S. Audio.
After a body is found in a container of asphalt near a North Carolina speedway, a NASCAR crew member tells forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan that his sister—a high school senior and aspiring race car driver—had disappeared 12 years ago with her boyfriend, Cale. Since Cale associated with Far Right wingers, the FBI had become involved—and then jumped back. What’s going on? All thriller readers will want to know. With a six-city tour.
Rotella, Sebastian. Triple Crossing. Mulholland Bks: Little, Brown. Aug. 2011. 352p. ISBN 9780316105309. $24.99.
Valentine Pescatore, a rookie cop working the border in San Diego, is recruited by gorgeous U.S. agent Isabel Puente to infiltrate a Mexican crime family. It gets complicated when Valentine falls in love with Isabel while crossing swords with the head of Tijuana’s anti-corruption unit. Since Rotella has spent the last 23 years covering terrorism, organized crime, and homeland security for the Los Angeles Times , the details in his first novel should be vivid and accurate.
Swann, Maxine. The Foreigners. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2011. NAp. ISBN 9781594488306. $25.95.
Swann, who won a passel of prizes for the story she expanded into the novel Flower Children, which in turn won some strong reviews and four stars from People, offers a new novel set in Buenos Aires. Three women open up like flowers in response to the city’s atmosphere. Well worth checking.
Swierczynski, Duane. Hell and Gone. Mulholland Bks: Little, Brown. Aug. 2011. 256p. ISBN 9780316133296. pap. $14.99.
Well, bam, bam, bam. Charlie Hardie, who appears this June in Fun and Games , now finds himself at a secret facility where crazed killers can be studied. And he’s the warden. Next up in this trilogy: Point and Shoot , ready in September. Swierczynski is a regular contributor to Marvel Comics, and this is being pitched not only to action lovers but to comic books fans.
Vaughn, Carrie. Kitty’s Greatest Hits. Tor. Aug. 2011. 320p. ISBN 9780765326966. $25.99; pap. ISBN 9780765329578. $14.99.
Kitty Norville is a werewolf, a radio talk-show host, and the star of nine best-selling fantasy titles (including this June’s Kitty’s Big Trouble). Here’s a collection of stories that give us insight into Kitty and some of her supernatural friends; two stories are new, including a novella that tells us about key character Cormac.
Whitehouse, David. Bed. Scribner. Aug. 2011. 224p. ISBN 9781451614220. $27.99.
The first winner of a new contest for unpublished manuscripts, launched at the London Book Fair and called, cheekily, To Hell with Prizes, this debut by journalist Whitehouse features a disgruntled 25-year-old who decides to go to bed—forever. The consequences for his family over three decades are chronicled by his younger brother. A glimpse suggests that the whole is darkly funny yet philosophical in perhaps a Martin Amis-ish sort of way. Watch for your engaged readers.
Winslow, Don. The Gentlemen’s Hour. S. & S. Aug. 2011. 320p. ISBN 9781439183397. $25; eISBN 9781439183410.
Wipeout! P.I. Boone Daniels is in trouble with his fellow surfers because he agrees to help a young man accused of murdering a local surfing legend. Already published in the UK, this title was a 2010 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger finalist. Thriller readers should clamor.
NONFICTION
CBS News. What We Saw: The Events of September 11, 2001, in Words, Pictures, and Video. S. & S. Aug. 2011. 160p. ISBN 9781451626667. $29.99; eISBN 9781439142028.
First published in 2002, this book was drawn from the archives of CBS to present an account of 9/11. Here it’s an updated edition with a new piece by Joe Klein called “Where We Are Now.” Compare with Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn’s 102 Minutes , another leading 9/11 account set to be rereleased this August.
Dent, Jim. Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s. Aug. 2011. 304p. ISBN 9780312652852. $25.99.
Back in 1969, even as he was leading the University of Texas Longhorns in victory after victory on the football field, Freddie Steinmark suffered terrible pain in one leg. It turned out to be bone cancer, and his leg was amputated, but during the Cotton Bowl he appeared on crutches to cheer from the sidelines, succumbing not long after. Best-selling author Dent ( The Junction Boys ) tells a story that’s bigger than Texas.
Ehrmann, Joe & Gregory Jordan with Paula Ehrmann. InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives. S. & S. Aug. 2011. 288p. ISBN 9781439182987. $24; eISBN 9781439183007.
“The most important coach of the year” ( Parade ), named “Man of the Year” by the Baltimore Colts, the Frederick Douglass Society, and the National Fatherhood Initiative, and subject of Jeffrey Marx’s best-selling Season of Life , Ehrmann tells coaches how athletics can make young men and women better, more responsible people. A no-brainer wherever sports are strong.
Frye, Soleil Moon. Happy Chaos: From Punky to Parenting and My Perfectly Imperfect Adventures in Between. Dutton. Aug. 2011. 256p. ISBN 9780525952312. $19.95.
Once a child TV star (remember Punky Brewster?) and now co-owner of a green children’s boutique that is starting up a line with Target, Frye has two children and lots of parenting advice on everything from planning a great birthday party to being flexible. With 1.4 million Twitter followers and 100,000 Facebook friends, she’s definitely got an audience. For all you anti–Tiger moms out there.
Gray, Geoffrey. Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper. Crown. Aug. 2011. 352p. ISBN 9780307451293. $25; eISBN 9780307451316. CD: Random Audio.
The only skyjacker never to be apprehended, D.B. Cooper commandeered a Northwest Orient airliner in 1971, demanded $200,000 and a parachute, leapt from the plane, and has never been seen again despite a massive manhunt. Granted access to the FBI files, Gray wrote a 2007 New York story that has reopened the case. Since Cooper has become something of a leg end, there should be interest.
Heller, Erica. Yossarian Slept Here: When Joseph Heller Was Dad, the Apthorp Was Home, and Life Was a Catch-22. S. & S. Aug. 2011. 256p. ISBN 9781439197684. $25; eISBN 9781439197707.
Catch-22 author Joseph Heller’s daughter, who grew up in New York’s posh Apthorp apartment building, here recalls a childhood that felt charmed despite her parents’ over-the-top divorce. Whatever the writing is like (I don’t know), who wouldn’t want a close-up of Yossarian’s creator ?
Kennedy, Randall. The Persistence of the Colorline: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency. Pantheon. Aug. 2011. 288p. ISBN 9780307377890. $24.95; eISBN 9780307379801.
Harvard law professor Kennedy, the author of best sellers like Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word , considers racial politics in the time of the Obama presidency. Does Obama have particular responsibilities to the African American community? What’s the racial opposition to him really like? These questions and more should engage the politically savvy. With a four-city tour.
McWhorter, John. That Being Said: A Linguist’s Lens on Language. Gotham Bks: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2011. 272p. ISBN 9781592406258. $26.
Columbia linguistics professor McWhorter is the author to go to when you want to talk language; his best sellers include Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue . Here McWhorter gives us insight into the linguist’s job while explaining how languages are born, grow, change, and sometimes die. Fun for all—or at least all with a passion for words.
Mitnick, Kevin with William L. Simon. Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker. Little, Brown. Aug. 2011. 369p. ISBN 9780316037709. $25.99. CD: Hachette Audio.
Once the most wanted computer hacker in the world, Mitnick is now a good guy with two best sellers on Internet security. Here he finally offers a memoir of his hacking period and the three years he spent on the run from the FBI. (The agency had barred him from discussing his experiences for seven years.) Not just for tech nerds, this is bound to be entertaining in the style of Frank Abagnale’s Catch Me If You Can . And informative, too.
Potter, Matt. Outlaws Inc.: Under the Radar and on the Black Market with the World’s Most Dangerous Smugglers. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Aug. 2011. 288p. ISBN 9781608195305. $25.
When communism collapses, some Russian military men buy a decommissioned Soviet plane for mere kopeks, then launch a shipping business. Soon they’re crisscrossing borders with everything from illegal weapons to emergency aid, working for the Taliban, the U.S. government, and various global corporations. When demand slows, they move their operations to Africa. Okay, 0 true. Widely published British journalist Potter traveled with these risk-takers for a time so that he could tell their story. This should be great narrative nonfiction reading.
Streatfeild, Dominic. A History of the World Since 9/11: Disaster, Deception, and Destruction in the War on Terror. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Aug. 2011. 432p. ISBN 9781608192700. $27.
Spawned by 9/11, the war on terror has not been a success: we haven’t found Osama bin Laden or curbed Islamic extremism, while war drags on in Afghanistan and Iraq. British author Streatfeild offers a dry-eyed look at what, exactly, has gone wrong. Of interest to the politically astute; no comfort here, I think, for the conservative-minded.
My Picks
Matar, Hisham. Anatomy of a Disappearance. Dial. Jun. 2011. 240p. ISBN 9780385340441. $22; eISBN 9780679643982. FICTION
Matar’s debut novel, In the Country of Men, won six international prizes, including the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize (Europe and South Asia) for Best First Novel and the inaugural Arab American Book Award. It was also a finalist for the Man Booker, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Guardian First Book Award. Oh, and I found it searing, evocative, and original. Here is Matar’s second work, featuring an 11-year-old born in exile after his parents flee revolutionary upheaval. Following his mother’s death, Nuri and his father become entranced with half-English, half-Arab Mona when they spy her in a yellow bathing suit by the hotel swimming pool. Obviously, there will be complications, even tragedy. First serial rights were sold tThe New Yorker. Get it.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. A Short Autobiography. Scribner. Aug. 2011. 192p. ISBN 9781439199060. pap. $15. NONFICTION
At the time of his death, Fitzgerald had not published an autobiographical work of any sort—something almost unimaginable in today’s climate. Now James L.W. West III, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, has gathered 19 personal essays written from 1920 to 1940 and arranged them chronologically to disclose Fitzgerald’s life story. From “What I Think and Feel at 25” to “One Hundred False Starts,” these essays would seem to serve as an intellectual autobiography and should inspire Fitzgerald readers new or returning. With all the maundering memoirs out there, it should be a pleasure to read something like this, which carries more weight.
