Readers > New Books > Fiction, June 2008
Fiction, June 2008
General Fiction |Mysteries |Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
General Fiction
- Akpan, Uwem
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Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. "My Parents' Bedroom," a story included in this collection, was one of five short stories by African writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for African Writing.
- Alpert, Mark
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An exciting new thriller and science writer presents this action-packed debut that weaves issues of science, history and politics with white-knuckle chases and a gun battle that crosses into the extra dimensions of space and time.
- Barry, Sebastian
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Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict, The Secret Scripture is an epic story of love, betrayal and unavoidable tragedy, and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic Church had on individual lives for much of the 20th century.
- Boggs, Johnny D.
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"Two-time Spur Award winner Boggs (Camp Ford) relates the 1880s exploits of Daniel Killstraight, a Kwahadi Comanche returning from the Carlisle Industrial School in Pennsylvania." Publisher's Weekly
- Cook, Thomas H.
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While conducting a class on historical evil, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of a notorious local murderer. When Eddie's investigation into his past leads him to Jack's own father, Jack finds himself questioning Eddie's motives — and his own.
- Deaver, Jeffery
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A psychotic mastermind of data mining commits vicious crimes and then plants ironclad evidence to implicate innocent men. This timely thriller reunites Lincoln Rhyme with his partner and paramour Amelia Sachs as they face their toughest adversary yet.
- Dubus III, Andre
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Set in the seamy underside of American life, this new work by the author of House of Sand and Fog gets its anguished start when a stripper chooses to take her three-year-old daughter to work when the babysitter falls ill.
- Essex, Karen
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Stealing Athena traverses the centuries into the hearts of two extraordinary women separated by two millennia to reveal the passions, ambitions and controversies surrounding one of the world’s most treasured and fought over collections of art — the Elgin Marbles.
- Faletti, Giorgio
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A detective and an FBI agent embark upon the most harrowing case of their careers as they attempt to track down an enigmatic killer in this thriller set in Monte Carlo and featuring an international cast of intriguing characters.
- Ferraris, Zo'e
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A finely detailed literary mystery set in contemporary Saudi Arabia, Ferraris's debut centers on Nouf ash-Shrawi, a 16-year-old girl who disappears into the desert three days before her marriage and is later found dead and several weeks pregnant.
- Furst, Alan
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Set in Warsaw, Selsia and Paris, Furst's new thriller combines espionage with deadly romance, all against the rearing threat of Hitler's gathering war against Europe.
- Galloway, Steven
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Inspired by a true story, The Cellist of Sarajevo poignantly explores how war can change one’s definition of humanity, the effect of music on our emotional endurance and how a romance with the rituals of daily life can itself be a form of resistance.
- Guthrie, Allan
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Andy Park passes out at the sight of blood, but he thinks he's discovered a way to make his family's enemies pay. He isn't prepared for the fallout, though, when his teenage son is put in mortal danger and his daughter and her fiancé are forced to carry out his dirty work. With equal parts blood phobia and blood lust, Savage Night unfolds over six hours in Scotland's capital city.
- Hannan, Chris
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This entertaining first novel from Scottish playwright Hannan takes place in the down-and-dirty Wild West and features 19-year-old Dol McQueen as an unlikely heroine — an intelligent, strong-willed hooker with a weakness for liquid opium, or "missy."
- Hearst, Dorothy
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Set 14,000 years ago in what is now Southern Europe, this first installment of a trilogy is told from the point of view of Kaala, a young wolf born of a forbidden mixed-blood litter. An outcast after her mother is exiled, Kaala struggles to earn her place in the pack.
- Letts, Billie
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With her mother long dead and her father long gone to find his fortune in Las Vegas, 15-year-old Luttie and her brother live in Yankton, South Dakota, until they are forced to hightail it out of town in an aging Pontiac.
- Maguire, Elizabeth
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The Open Door is a luminous and moving novel inspired by the life of Constance Fenimore Woolson, one of the most widely-read and respected American authors of the 19th century. Exploring themes of passion, life, death, friendship and art, the novel is a vivid evocation of the complex forces behind literary creation.
- McMahon, Neil
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Hugh Davoren and his pal, Madbird, are thrown into the middle of an unsolved double homicide, in this dramatic follow-up to the acclaimed Lone Creek.
- Margolin, Phillip
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Portland author Margolin is back, this time with a deadly game of intrigue and murder that twists through Washington, D.C.'s halls of power and leads straight to the White House.
- Miles, Jonathan
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From the cocktails columnist of the New York Times comes a scathingly funny, deeply moving epistle from a stranded passenger whose enraged letter of complaint transforms into a lament for a life gone awry.
- Morris, R. N.
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Following in the footsteps of the acclaimed The Gentle Axe, A Vengeful Longing features the detective Porfiry Petrovich in another atmospheric and gripping slice of 19th century Russia.
- Ohle, David
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The Pisstown Chaos is a novel about disease and forced relocation. Political power seems to be solely in the hands of one Reverend Herman Hooker, an "American Divine" who revels in the peoples' suffering. Chaos rages on as parasitic infestations spread and the Reverend rules with an iron fist from his Templex headquarters, spouting platitudes to the ever-moving masses.
- Seymour, Gerald
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The Walking Dead is a suspenseful thriller about the modern world, with all its dangers and complexities, and two men on very different paths — one a terrorist, the other a police officer.
- Sherwood, Barrie
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Filled with motorcycle gangs, phony samurai, high-tech love dolls and a selection of manga, Escape from Amsterdam paints an offbeat portrait of contemporary Japan and introduces a strikingly original author.
- Willett, Jincy
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The author of Winner of the National Book Award presents a darkly comic novel about a writing group with a killer in its midst.
- Winslow, Don
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The author of The Winter of Frankie Machine is back with a razor-sharp novel as cool as its California surfer heroes, and as heart-stopping as a wave none of them sees coming.
- Wroblewski, David
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This riveting saga of an American family captures the deep and ancient alliance between humans and dogs, and the power of fate through one boy's epic journey into the wild.
Mysteries
- Cooper, Natasha
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When a chemical explosion rips through quiet fields in the north of England, it destroys much more than the innocent life of the man who farmed them. In her grief, the widow turns on the company responsible. Enter hotshot barrister Trish Maguire, who finds herself in turmoil when she is called on to defend not the heartbroken widow but the multinational company instead.
- Craig, Daniel E.
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Dedicated hotelier Trevor Lambert takes a job at Hotel Cinema, a million-dollar rejuvenation of an Old Hollywood motor inn. It's a fabulous opening party until Tinseltown's hottest star, Chelsea Fricks, takes a fatal dive from her penthouse balcony. Was it a reckless publicity stunt or did fame drive her to suicide?
- de Castrique, Mark
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Sam Blackman, a chief warrant officer in a military criminal investigation detachment and an Iraq veteran, must investigate the murder of a fellow amputee and its link to another 90-year-old murder.
- Gimnez-Bartlett, Alicia
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Detective Petra Delicado thirsts for new challenges in her work. Meanwhile, her relationship with Sergeant Garzn is getting more complicated as their private and professional lives increasingly overlap, and they find themselves on the trail of a serial rapist stalking the streets of Barcelona.
- Greenwood, Kerry
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Baker Corinna Chapman is happy with her life and has no intention of doing any more investigative work. At least until she bites into what should have been a lovely gourmet chocolate and instead finds a chili-filled catastrophe. Is this tampering part of an elaborate and horrible joke — or a warning?
- Nabb, Magdalen
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Daniela is a quiet single mother studying for a doctorate in chemistry. She rarely goes out, so why was she murdered in her bedroom at the family's new villa? The prosecutor asks specifically for Marshal Guarnaccia to head the investigation, in this 14th book in the series.
- Nesser, Hakan
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Available for the first time in English, this book is the one that gave the popular Van Veeteren crime series its start.
- O'Neil, Vincent H.
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Things are about to heat up in the sleepy town of Exile, Florida. When fact-checker Frank Cole is asked to help the Exile Bank update its safe deposit records, it sounds like a nice, simple job. With the aid of retiree Gray Toliver, Frank starts tracking down bank customers who left the area without emptying their safe deposit boxes. That’s when the temperature starts to rise.
- Pope, Barbara
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In this richly atmospheric novel, a mysterious young woman named Solange Vernet arrives in Aix-en-Provence with her lover, a Darwinian scholar named Charles Westbury, and a year later is found strangled in a quarry outside the city. The young and inexperienced magistrate, Bernard Martin, finds his investigation caught in the crossfires of a raging cultural debate.
- Rendell, Ruth
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After a human hand is discovered by a truffle-hunting dog, Chief Inspector Wexford tries to piece together events that took place 11 years ago. Soon, long-buried secrets are revealed and it is hoped that local people who have disappeared may yet be put to rest.
- Schreck, Tom
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After 25 years in prison for the murder of a couple of cheerleaders, a quarterback and the class president, Howard "Hacker" Reinhart gets discharged. His case is assigned to the Schlitz-drinking, Elvis-loving social worker and amateur boxer Duffy Dombrowski. Soon, local high school VIPs start showing up dead and Howard is nowhere to be found.
- Smiley, Patricia
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A fun and feisty heroine stars in another smart, suspenseful mystery from the author of Short Change.
- Toussaint, Maggie
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In this debut novel, Wall explores the ongoing conflict between the explosive resort developments in South Carolina and the preservationists determined to protect the barrier islands.
- Upson, Nicola
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For fans of classic detective stories, including the mysteries of Agatha Christie, comes this first novel set in the exotic world of British theater in the 1930s.
- Vargas, Fred
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A bestseller in France, This Night's Foul Work is another installment in the internationally acclaimed Commissaire Adamsberg series.
- Vasquez, Ian
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Debut novelist Ian Vasquez infuses In the Heat with a steamy, exotic voice all his own in this hardboiled crime novel set in Belize.
Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
- Bilsborough, David
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Five hundred years ago a huge force defeated an evil, supernaturally powerful tyrant. Now, terrible news from the north suggests that someone or some thing is once again threatening to darken the lives of those whose forebears still remember the horrific past.
- Brennan, Marie
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England flourishes under the hand of its Virgin Queen: Elizabeth, Gloriana, last and most powerful of the Tudor monarchs. But a great light casts a great shadow. In hidden catacombs beneath London, a second Queen holds court: Invidiana, ruler of faerie England and a dark mirror to the glory above.
- Carey, Jacqueline
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Having paid dearly for ignoring Elua's edict to love as thou wilt, Imriel and Sidonie have finally come forward to publicly confess their love for each other — only to watch the news ignite turmoil throughout the land.
- Douglass, Sara
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Tencendor is no more. The land is gone. But a few SunSoars remain, and a new foe walks the world. In a time of magic and danger, three new heroes have stepped forward. Yet despite their best efforts, the Dark God Kanubai has risen and war approaches — backed by the evil, insidious DarkGlass Mountain, hordes of insatiable Skraelings ravage the land.
- Green, Simon R.
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Eddie Drood's clan has been watching mankind's back for ages. And now he's in charge of the whole kit and caboodle — but it's not going to be an easy gig.
- Hamilton, Laurell K.
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A favor for Jason, vampire hunter Anita Blake's werewolf lover, puts her in the center of a full-blown scandal that threatens master-vampire Jean-Claude's reign — and makes her a pawn in an ancient vampire queen's new rise to power.
- Hartwell, David G.
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This year's contributors include international bestseller Neil Gaiman, influential heroic fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, historical fantasy novelist Kage Baker, classic genre wordsmiths Garth Nix, Tad Williams and many others.
- Hunt, Stephen
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When streetwise Molly Templar witnesses a brutal murder, her first instinct is to run back to the poorhouse where she grew up. But there she finds her fellow orphans butchered, and it slowly dawns on her that she had been the real target of the attack in this adventure set in a fantastical universe.
- Lake, Jay
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Paolina Barthes is a young woman of remarkable intellectual ability — a genius on the level of Isaac Newton. But she has grown up in isolation, in a small village of shipwreck survivors, on the Wall in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. She knows little of the world, but she knows that England rules it, and must be the home of people who possess the learning that she so desperately wants. And so she sets off to make her way off the Wall, not knowing that she will bring her astounding, unschooled talent for sorcery to the attention of those deadly factions who would use or kill her for it.
- Reynolds, Alastair
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Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the multi-faceted utopian society of the Glitter Band. His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that leaves nine hundred people dead. But then his investigation uncovers something even more potentially dangerous — a covert plot by an enigmatic entity seeking nothing less than total control of the Glitter Band.
- Silverberg, Robert
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Clay is a man from the 20th century, an educated person who considers himself open-minded. Clay is befriended by a group of humans called Skimmers, who can change form at will. He goes on a journey of discovery with them which takes him around the future earth into the depths of his own soul.