New Fiction Releases
December 2012

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General Fiction . Fantasy & Science Fiction . Mystery & Detective . Romance

General Fiction

Adam in Eden
By Carlos Fuentes
A respected Mexican businessman finds his idyllic life crumbling in the face of his wife’s infidelity with a corrupt director of national security, his brother-in-law’s worship of a child preacher and his mistress’ break with reality.

The Heat of the Sun
By David Rain
From Greenwich Village in the Roaring Twenties to a revelation on a Nagasaki hillside by the sea, this high-spirited debut novel follows Ben “Trouble” Pinkerton, the son of Lieutenant Benjamin Pinkerton and the geisha Madame Butterfly, as he finds himself at the center of some of the biggest events of the century.

Heroes Proved
By Oliver North
Set in a near-future world, Conservative Christians have been driven underground by a repressive government that discredits a former war hero during an effort to rescue a kidnapped scientist.

Magnificence
By Lydia Millet
After her husband’s death, Susan Lindley moves into her late, great uncle’s Pasadena mansion and restores his taxidermy collection while being joined in the residence by an equally strange human menagerie.

Mythic Imagination: Collected Short Fiction (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
By Joseph Campbell
A selection of definitive short fiction by the influential teacher of mythology and best-selling author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces offers insight into the role of the Depression and other historical periods in his creative life, his evocative applications of symbolism and the early literary achievements that shaped his pioneering subsequent writings.

Never Coming Back
By Hans Koppel
Struggling with fear, despair and suspicious Swedish authorities when his wife fails to return home, Mike endures a nightmarish existence with his daughter, unaware that his vigil is being secretly filmed and shown to his wife by her abductors in a nearby cellar.

A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts
By Sebastian Faulks
Five interconnected stories by the best-selling author of Birdsong trace the experiences of soldiers whose relationships are irrevocably shaped by war, from a World War II prisoner who endures his incarceration by imagining a cricket match, to a man in a Victorian poorhouse who shamefully remembers the son he gave away.

Private London
By James Patterson and Mark Pearson
Dan Carter, head of the London division of Private, the world’s most exclusive detective agency, must join forces with his ex-wife if he is going to save American student Hannah Shapiro from a threat that has plagued her for eight years.

Shadow Creek
By Joy Fielding
An unlikely group of campers that includes a woman, her two oddball friends, her teen daughter and her ex’s fiancée, embark on a trip in the Adirondacks only to be targeted by a pair of teenage killers.

She Loves Me Not: New and Selected Stories
By Ron Hansen
An anthology of stories reflecting more than 20 years of writing by the author of A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion explores a diverse range of topics from Oscar Wilde and murder to dementia and romance.

The Thieves of Legend
By Richard Doetsch
Blackmailed by a U.S. Army colonel to steal pieces of an ancient Chinese puzzle, reformed thief Michael St. Pierre and his ex-girlfriend, KC Ryan, confront the complex underworld of the Chinese triads, a twisted female assassin and a power-hungry madman.

Tucker’s Reckoning (A Ralph Compton Noel)
By Matthew P. Mayo
After witnessing the murder of a well-liked rancher in Oregon, Samuel Tucker becomes a suspect and works with the rancher’s niece to prove his innocence.

Two Graves
By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Special Agent Pendergrast assists NYPD Lieutenant D’Agosta in the investigation of a number of killings that ultimately prove to be messages from his wife’s kidnappers.

Woes of the True Policeman
By Roberto Bolano
After his political disillusionment and love of poetry leads to a scandal that forces him to flee from Barcelona, Amalfitano, an exiled Chilean university professor and widower, arrives in Santa Teresa, Mexico, where he meets a magician and writer whose work highlights the fragile nature of literature and life.

Fantasy & Science Fiction

All Fall Down
By Harry Turtledove
A former police officer and his family struggle to survive and reestablish a civilization in the wake of a super-volcano eruption in Yellowstone National Park.

Ash (David Ash)
By James Herbert
Visiting a secluded stately home that country locals believe to be haunted, paranormal investigator David Ash looks into stories about strange occurrences and makes a shocking discovery beyond anything he has ever encountered.

Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
By Philip Pullman
The acclaimed author of the His Dark Materials trilogy presents mature and scholarly retellings of 50 favorite and lesser-known fairy tales on the 200th anniversary of the Grimm Brothers’ Children’s and Household Tales, in a volume that includes such stories as “Cinderella,” “Rapunzel” and “Briar-Rose.”

Great North Road
By Peter F. Hamilton
The best-selling author of the Void series combines futuristic speculation with murder when a scientific expedition on a faraway planet searches for an alien species only to be stalked by a determined killer who may be a hostile alien or a member of their own team.

Scoundrels
By Timothy Zahn
The award-winning author of Heir to the Empire presents a new Star Wars adventure set after the events of A New Hope featuring Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian and other favorite characters who work together on a potentially lucrative heist in the hopes of paying off Jabba the Hutt’s bounty on Han’s head.

Mystery & Detective

And Then You Dye
By Monica Ferris
Needlework shop owner Betsy Devonshire investigates the murder of a customer who was also an avid and talented yard hand-dyer.

Blood Never Dies (Bill Slider)
By Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Investigating the murder of a handsome young man who was found in his bathtub drained of blood, Bill Slider and his team struggle to identify the victim, whose possessions are missing and whose background becomes a perplexing challenge.

The Boy in the Snow (Edie Kiglatuk)
By M. J. McGrath
Visiting Alaska with Sergeant Derek Palliser to help her ex-husband Sammy compete in the famous Iditarod dog sled race, half-Inuit Edie Kiglatuk joins a local investigation into the exposure death of an infant and uncovers a sinister ring of corrupt politics, religious intolerance and sex trafficking.

The Child’s Child
By Barbara Vine
Inheriting their late grandmother’s sprawling, book-filled home in London, siblings Grace and Andrew Easton move in together and initially enjoy a shared life that is complicated by Andrew’s gay relationship with a strident novelist, the shattering murder of a friend and Grace’s discovery of a long-lost manuscript.

Dying on the Vine
By Aaron Elkins
Italian detective Gideon Oliver investigates what is believed by the local Tuscan authorities to be a murder-suicide when a couples’ remains are discovered in a vineyard.

Extra Credit (Murder 101)
By Maggie Barbieri
Reluctantly hosting her in-laws during a birthday party for her twin stepdaughters, Alison Bergeron investigates when the girls’ estranged uncle gives them a lavish gift and is subsequently found dead.

Found Guilty at Five
By Ann Purser
Lois Meade enlists the assistance of Inspector Cowgill after a mysterious young cellist and her instrument go missing.

The Garden Party (Harry Vicary)
By Peter Turnbull
Following a mysterious message attached to the bodies of two murder victims, Detective Inspector Harry Vicary and his team stumble on the activities of a dark criminal ring while reconstructing the events of a gangland garden party attended by the victims.

Good Junk (Cliff St. James)
By Ed Kovacs
A dramatic follow-up to Storm Damage finds guilt-riddled private detective Cliff St. James assisting the New Orleans police department with the murder investigation of a government “black projects” engineer whose demise is tied to a seedy network of arms dealers and foreign intelligence agents.

An Instrument of Slaughter (Home Front Detective)
By Edward Marston
Investigating the murder of a conscientious objector on the eve of World War I, Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy find the case complicated by a lack of public sympathy and the popularity of a chief suspect.

Orders from Berlin
By Simon Tolkien
In London in 1940, Trave’s career with MI6 begins with an investigation into the murder of the former head of the organization that has direct ties to an assassination plot against Winston Churchill.

Safe House
By Chris Ewan
Waking up in a hospital after a motorcycle crash, Rob Hale becomes obsessed with discerning the fate of a blonde woman who was riding on the back of his bike, one the doctors and police claim he has imagined.

The Song of the Nightingale (Hawkenlye Mystery)
By Alys Clare
Returning to her cell near Hawkenlye Abbey to help the needy, early 13th century abbess Helewise compromises her relationship with Sir Josse D’Acquin who investigates the ritual murders of three men at the same time his son becomes involves in the causes of the doomed Cathars.

Unnatural Wastage (Sukey Reynolds)
By Betty Rowlands
When a pretty girl is found murdered on a ship bearing a distinctively patterned knife in her back, Detective Constable Sukey Reynolds considers numerous suspects including professional rivals and legal adversaries against whom the victim was to testify, a case that is marked by Sukey’s relationship with handsome journalist Harry Matthews.

Valley of the Shadow (Cornish Mystery)
By Carola Dunn
Rescuing a half-drowned Indian refugee who imparts a cryptic message about a family trapped in a cave before he is whisked away, Eleanor Trewynn, her niece Megan and her neighbor Nick Gresham embark on a frantic rescue mission that pits them against dangerous human smugglers.

Whispering Death (Inspector Hal Challis)
By Garry Disher
While dealing with a rapist in a police uniform who is stalking women along his Peninsula beat, a serial armed robber and a home invasion, Inspector Hal Challis finds his personal problems taking a back seat to his current case load.

Romance

Shadow Woman
By Linda Howard
Waking up to discover that she has lost two years of memories and that she now has a different face, Lizette Henry teams up with the mysterious Xavier, who helps her to investigate disturbing flashbacks and uncover a far-reaching conspiracy that threatens both of their lives.

Shiver
By Karen Robards
Repossessing cars to support her small son after being abandoned on the harsh streets of East St. Louis, young single mother Samantha Jones discovers a dying man in the trunk of a car who takes her hostage and forces her to help him reach his protectors.

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11/2012