Readers > New Books > Fiction, May 2007
Fiction, May 2007
General Fiction |Mysteries |Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
General Fiction
- Abrams, Douglas Carlton
-
Capturing the decadent and dangerous world of the Spanish Golden Age, this historical novel explores universal questions about the nature of love and desire — brought to life through Don Juan's secret childhood in a convent to his inescapable fall into the madness of love.
- Baldacci, David
-
Secret Service agent Sean King agrees to investigate a murder at an exclusive scientific retreat. Suddenly, he and his partner Michelle Maxwell find themselves in a race against time to expose those who would tip the entire global power structure and destroy what's left of their lives.
- Berg, Elizabeth
-
Berg's new novel, set in the time of World War II, tells the story of the three Heaney sisters and the men they love.
- Chabon, Michael
-
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay pens an homage to the stylish menace of 1940s noir, in a novel that imagines if Alaska, not Israel, had become the homeland for the Jews after World War II.
- Clark, Clare
-
1666: The Great Fire of London sweeps through the streets and a heavily pregnant woman flees the flames. A few months later she gives birth to a child disfigured by a red birthmark. 1718: Sixteen-year-old Eliza Tally sees the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral rising above a rebuilt city. She arrives as an apothecary's maid, a position hastily arranged to shield the father of her unborn child from scandal. But why is the apothecary so eager to welcome her when he already has a maid, a half-wit named Mary? Why is Eliza never allowed to look her veiled master in the face or go into the study where he pursues his experiments? It is only on her visits to the Huguenot bookseller who supplies her master's scientific tomes that she realizes the nature of his obsession. And she knows she has to act to save not just the child but Mary and herself.
- Coben, Harlan
-
Twenty years ago, four teenagers at summer camp walked into the woods at night. Two were found murdered, and the others were never seen again. Four families had their lives changed forever. Now, two decades later, their lives are about to change again.
- Coelho, Paulo
-
The new novel from the author of The Alchemist chronicles the life of Athena, as told by the many people who knew her well or hardly at all. Like Coelho's previous novels, this is the kind of story that can transform the way readers think about love and sacrifice.
- Connelly, Michael Jerome
-
In his first case since he left the LAPD Open Unsolved Unit for the Homicide Special squad, Harry Bosch is called out to investigate a murder that may have chilling consequences for national security.
- Crace, Jim
-
Crace imagines an America of the future where a man and a woman trek across a devastated and dangerous landscape, finding strength in each other and an unexpected love.
- Drabble, Margaret
-
This is the story of Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman, who spent a summer together as children in Ornemouth. As they journey back to receive honorary degrees, they take stock of their lives over the past 30 years, their careers and their shared personal entanglements.
- Hosseini, Khaled
-
The author of The Kite Runner returns with a beautiful, riveting and haunting novel about the bond between two women in Afghanistan who are brought together by war, loss and fate.
- Lee, Min Jin
-
Casey Han's four years at Princeton gave her many things, but no job and a number of bad habits. In her debut novel, Lee examines what it means to maintain one's identity amid changing and complex social roles.
- Leonard, Elmore
-
Elmore Leonard is back, and so is Carl Webster, the hero marshal from The Hot Kid. It's the waning months of World War II, and Carl winds up in Detroit, on the trail of escaped German POWs, and in the arms of smart, sassy Honey Deal.
- Lindquist, Mark
-
Veteran police detective Wyatt James tracks a powerful methamphetamine distributor through a world of addiction, destruction and madness.
- Mones, Nicole
-
This exhilarating story is the transporting tale of how the sensual, romantic elements of haute Chinese cuisine become the perfect ingredients to lift the troubled soul of a grieving American woman.
- Moore, Susanna
-
At the heart of Moore's new novel is a crime of unfathomable horror and its effects on three profoundly different women whose lives are inextricably joined.
- Murakami, Haruki
-
With his trademark humor and psychological insight, Murakami's power of observation plays out in this novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn.
- Palahniuk, Chuck
-
In this fictional oral history, Buster "Rant" Casey's friends, enemies, admirers, detractors and relations have their say about him — an evil character who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time.
- Patterson, James
-
There's a madman on the loose in San Francisco. Lindsay Boxer and the Womens Murder Club return for the most chilling case yet in the latest entry of this best-selling series.
- Sandford, John
-
The latest novel from Sandford features the return of Lucas Davenport in this suspenseful, richly characterized and exciting drama.
- Schine, Cathleen
-
Schine's new novel revolves around one city block in Manhattan. In her book, as in life, canine companions compel their masters to go outside of themselves, to take part in the community they live in, to make friends and, sometimes, to fall in love.
- Swann, Maxine
-
Based on the author's own family, Flower Children is the amusing, moving, beautifully painted story of four children growing up in rural Pennsylvania, the offspring of devoutly hippie parents.
- Vincenzi, Penny
-
Three young women met at the start of their student travels in 1986. One of them abandoned a baby girl at Heathrow a year later. Raised by a a loving adoptive family, Kate, now a beautiful teenager, sets out to find her birth mother — a quest that unexpectedly brings the women together and exposes the secret buried so many years before.
- Vreeland, Susan
-
Vreeland returns with a vivid exploration of one of the most beloved paintings in history: Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party.
- Wolitzer, Hilma
-
For those who loved The Jane Austen Book Club, Wolitzer has written the quintessential summer novel — about friendship, romance, longing and, especially, the love of good books.
Mysteries
- Booth, Stephen
-
The anonymous, threatening phone calls Cooper and Fry receive indicate a disturbed mind with an unnatural passion for death. They are hoping against hope that the caller is just a harmless crank, but the clues in his disturbing messages point to the possibility of an all-too-real crime.
- Bryan, Bill
-
Ted used to be an investigative reporter — a good one. But that was before the divorce, the meltdown, the subsequent supervised visitation of his adorable little girl. Now he's one of several peon producers for the inexplicably successful reality show, The Mogul. Then Ted inadvertently witnesses a violent exchange between gangsta rapper Boney and Boney's girlfriend, Patrice. When Patrice goes missing, it's all Ted can do to keep his reporter instincts in check. With no real excuse for hanging out in the world of Cristal and grillz, Ted uses the resources at his disposal to snoop around. And what better way to invade a celebrity's privacy than by featuring him on reality TV?
- Davis, Lindsey
-
It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. Marcus Didius Falco and Helena have returned from Greece only to find their family's lives are in chaos and disarray. It is up to Falco and the Chief Spy Anacrites to set things back in order against the backdrop of a holiday when literally anything goes.
- Eriksson, Kjell
-
The follow-up to the The Princess of Burundi from a master of suspense follows Police Inspector Ann Lindell as she and her colleagues realize a deranged killer may be closer than anyone thinks.
- Hill, Susan Wittig
-
A woman vanishes in the fog up on "the Hill," an area locally known for its tranquility and peace. The police are not alarmed — people usually disappear for their own reasons. But when a young girl, an old man and even a dog disappear, no one can deny that something untoward is happening in this quiet cathedral town. From the passages revealing the killer's mind to the final twist, Hill's crime debut is the first in what promises to be a series featuring Simon Serrailler.
- Housewright, David
-
What appears to be a straightforward case of a cheating boyfriend, his alcoholic girlfriend and an opportune baseball bat proves far more complicated as unlicensed P.I. Rushmore McKenzie's violent past comes back to haunt him in Edgar-winner Housewright's latest mystery.
- Miller, Raymond
-
Dr. Andrew Carpenter is a pediatric cardiologist and a researcher, whose most promising work involves using embryonic stem cells to repair heart damage in infants. He's been receiving threatening messages from the Party of God, a fundamentalist group militantly opposed to such "Godless labors" — and now he's dead, killed in a hit-and-run on the streets of Manhattan. His devastated wife is sure it was murder, but the police think it was an accident. Enter private eye Nathaniel Singer, a detective with a literary bent and a penchant for honesty. He soon finds out that the Party of God were not the only enemies Dr. Carpenter had, as the list of suspects grows to include jealous colleagues and a brutal cop who insists that Singer drop the case. This literate, funny detective takes his place within the great tradition of the P.I. novel — a worthy successor to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Robert B. Parker's Spenser.
- Mills, Mark
-
Set in the Tuscan hills, The Savage Garden is the story of two murders, 400 years apart — and the ties that bind them.
- Pringle, Peter
-
An irresistible hero (a handsome scientist-adventurer cum cunning spy) confronts a murderous international conspiracy to control the world's food supply.
- Rehder, Ben
-
In his most ambitious, hilarious and commercial novel yet, Rehder skewers all sides of America's gun culture.
- Rosenfelt, David
-
Rosenfelt spins a tale of crime and courtroom theatrics where the only witness to a high-profile murder is a golden retriever.
- Santogrossi, Stephen
-
On a very hot morning in Southern California, Tim Ryder brings his coffee out to the front porch. Before he can take a sip, he sees the dead body of a young man laid out on his lawn. Neither Tim nor his wife, Deirdre, has ever seen the man before, but the youth’s death stirs up unhappy memories of the lives they were living twenty years earlier. He wonders if the murder is connected to testimony he gave against a Glenn Turet, a co-conspirator in a bungled armed robbery. When a detective shows up at Tim’s house and tells him that Turret has just been released from prison, Tim is certain that the dead body on his lawn is some kind of revenge. And maybe it’s only the beginning. Tim is determined to learn who the boy is, and, in turn, what else Turret has planned. But his search will require more of him than he ever imagined.
- Taylor, D. J.
-
Madness, greed, love, obsession, Machiavellian schemes and a great train robbery — all are interwoven in this imaginative novel that reinvents Victorian life and passions with skill and wit.
- Victor, Marilyn
-
Who would want the Director of the Minnesota Valley Zoo dead? Everyone! Anthony Wright made a career of getting what he wanted, whatever the price. When he's murdered and ends up as a late night snack for the zoo's fifteen-foot crocodile, few are shedding any tears. After police arrest the lead crocodile handler, it's up to zookeeper Lavender "Snake" Jones to prove they've arrested the wrong man. With the help of her Aussie husband, herpetologist Jeff Jones, Snake hacks her way through the shadowy underworld of illegal animal trading to uncover a snakepit of sordid deeds, secret pasts and corruption.
- Wagner, Jan Costin
-
Set in Finland during the unnervingly long days of late summer near the top of the world, Ice Moon is an unsettling, poignant mystery.
Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
- Aldiss, Brian W(ilson)
-
In the near future, a British citizen and prisoner of HARM (Hostile Activities Research Ministry) is tortured for writing a satirical book with a page about the assassination of the prime minister. Isolated from the outside world, he hallucinates a planet called Stygia and escapes the fear and pain of torture in a detailed dream of crossing a desert planet.
- Armstrong, Kelley
-
On a television shoot in Los Angeles, Jaime Vegas, a 43-year-old necromancer who can reanimate the dead, faces her biggest career challenge yet — the trapped ghosts of six murdered children.
- Berg, Carol
-
The black sheep son of a long line of sorcerers, 27-year-old Valen has spent the last 12 years hiding from his family and their expectations. His own mother has predicted that he will meet his doom in water, blood and ice. Her divination seems fulfilled when a comrade abandons Valen in a rainy wilderness half-dead, addicted to an enchantment that converts pain to pleasure, and possessing only a stolen book of maps. Offered sanctuary in a nearby monastery, Valen discovers that his book gains him entry into a world of secret societies, doomsayers, monks, princes and madmen, all seeking to unlock the mystery of a coming dark age. To his dismay, Valen must face what he fled so long ago, for the key to his country's doom is buried in half-forgotten myth and the secrets of his own past.
- Dann, Jack
-
This collection of 18 original wizard-themed stories includes contributions by some of the biggest names in fantasy and science fiction: Neil Gaiman, Patricia A. McKillip, Gene Wolfe, Jane Yolen, Tad Williams, Peter S. Beagle, Orson Scott Card and many others.
- Douglass, Sara
-
Lady Ishbel Brunelle was saved from an early death by the Coil, a serpent-worshipping clan that reads the future in disemboweled organs. She is now betrothed to the king of Escator when she is kidnapped by Ba'al'uz, the devious and mad brother of Isaiah, Tyrant of Isembaard to Isaish's wife.
- Duncan, Dave
-
In the sequel to Children of Chaos, the four sibling heirs to the dying Doge of Florengia, kidnapped as children by the Bloodlord Stralg, have grown to adulthood and been reunited. Now with their father dying they must make their way home past their enemies.
- Gunn, David
-
Drafted into the Death's Head, the elite enforcers of imperial will, Sven Tveskoeg is sent to a bleak faraway planet. There he finds himself in the midst of a military disaster, one that will take all his courage and all his firepower to survive.
- Harris, Charlaine
-
In this newest book of the Dallas Morning News series, Sookie must deal with a new man in her life — the shapeshifter Quinn — after being betrayed by her longtime vampire love.
- Lambshead, John
-
Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State, was the greatest spymaster the world had ever seen. But when he asked Dr. Dee to summon a demon the result was unexpected, especially for his orphaned niece Lucy. Sir Francis' duty as her guardian was to find Lucy a suitably aristocratic husband, not to let her fight demons and witchcraft for the Queen's Secret Service.
- Marillier, Juliet
-
Marillier continues the epic fantasy begun with The Dark Mirror with this story of Pictish King Bridei and his quest to bring peace to his land, with the help of the Fair Folk.
- Martinez, A. Lee
-
The Nameless Witch was locked in a basement until she was 18, cursed with immortality and an appetite for human flesh. After her mentor, an old witch named Ghastly Edna, is killed, the Nameless Witch sets off to avenge her death with some help from her duck familiar and a troll named Grurm.
- Murphy, C.E.
-
In this captivating novel, Joanne Walker — Seattle cop and reluctant shaman — finally begins to learn the tricks of the trade that she has so far ignored. Things are looking up, or they would be if she could rescue her spiritual mentor and save her boss from a sleeping sickness.
- Robins, Lane
-
Robins's debut novel is a dark fantasy marked by obsession, betrayal and vengeance set against the political machinations of a decadent aristocracy and their scheming courtiers.
- Rogers, Cameron
-
In this debut novel from Rogers, Walter, a four-year-old boy with sudden intimations of mortality, makes the mistake of banishing from his closet a monster who was actually his protector.
- Turtledove, Harry
-
In their heavily regimented Communist country, the biggest excitement for a group of friends is a wargame shop called The Gladiator. When the store is shut down for teaching counterrevolutionary tactics, only one staffer remains behind — a time trader, who was accidentally left behind.
- Weber, David
-
David Weber and Eric Flint continue their Ring of Fire series — the saga of the residents of an entire West Virginia town who have been hurled back in time and their epic struggle for freedom and justice against the tyrannies of the 17th century.
- Zindell, David
-
In this sequel to The Lightstone, on the island continent of Ea it is a dark time of chaos and war. Morjin, the evil Lord of Lies, seeks to enslave the entire world. Land after land falls under his evil power. The one thing that has the potential to destroy him is an object that has been lost for ages: the Lightstone.