Readers > New Books > Fiction, July 2009
Fiction, July 2009
General Fiction |Mysteries |Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
General Fiction
- Carey, Mike
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A brutal murder in King's Cross bears all the hallmarks of a long-dead American serial killer, and it takes more good sense than Castor possesses not to get involved.
- Cottam, F. G.
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Just weeks after four students cross the threshold of the derelict Fischer House, one of them has committed suicide and the other three are descending into madness. Nick Mason’s sister is one of them. To save her, Nick must join ranks with Paul Seaton — the only person to have visited the house and survive. But Paul is a troubled man, haunted by otherworldly visions that even now threaten his sanity.
- Frank, Dorothea Benton
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Dorothea Benton Frank returns to the enchanted landscape of South Carolina's Lowcountry made famous in her beloved New York Times bestseller Sullivans Island to tell the story of the next generation of Hamiltons and Hayes.
- Fuerst, James
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Life hasn't been easy for Eugene "Huge" Smalls. Sure, his IQ is off the charts, but that doesn't help much when you're growing up in the 1980s in a dreary New Jersey town where your bad reputation precedes you, the public school system's written you off as a lost cause, and even your own family seems out to get you. But it's not all bad. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett have taught Huge everything he needs to know about being a hard-boiled detective — and he's just been hired to solve his first case. What he doesn't realize is that his search for the truth will change everything for him.
- Green, George Dawes
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The Boatwrights have just won the Georgia State lottery. Unfortunately, it's going to be the worst day of their lives as the family is taken hostage by two drifters intent on getting half the payout. At once frightening, comic and suspenseful, Ravens is wholly original and utterly compelling.
- Hyde, Elisabeth
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From the author of The Abortionist's Daughter comes a gripping new novel about a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon that changes the lives of everyone on board.
- Iles, Greg
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As a prosecutor in Houston, Penn Cage sent killers to death row. But as mayor of his hometown Natchez, Mississippi Penn will face his most dangerous threat. Urged by old friends to try to restore this fading jewel of the Old South, Penn has ridden into office on a tide of support for change. But in its quest for new jobs and fresh money, Natchez has turned to casino gambling, and now five steamboats float on the river beside the old slave market, like props from Gone With the Wind.
- Just, Ward S.
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One of the most astute writers of American fiction delivers the resonant story of Alec Malone, a senator's son who rejects the family business of politics for a career as a newspaper photographer.
- Keegan, Nicola
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Haunted by a litany of childhood tragedy, Pip escapes into the racing lane, where her suffering and rage are transmuted into beauty, grace and purity of will. Swimming is a story about competition, obsession — and about a young girl struggling to find salvation in the only way she can.
- Klein, Zoe
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By turns philosophical, suspenseful and passionate, this debut novel — in the bestselling tradition of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent — transports readers into a mystical world and takes them on a journey they won't soon forget.
- Laird, Nick
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When David Pinner introduces his former teacher, the American artist Ruth Marks, to his friend and flatmate James Glover, he unwittingly sets in place a love triangle loaded with tension, guilt and heartbreak, in this artful meditation on love and life in contemporary London.
- MacKenzie, Ian
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MacKenzie's stirring and lyrical debut is a story of a family inalterably fractured by its past, of a man who refuses to believe that what is done cannot be undone, and of a world that insists — catastrophically, in the end — otherwise.
- McAdam, Colin
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A masterpiece of adolescent perspective, emotion, impulse and relationships, Fall is the riveting story of two male roommates at a co-ed boarding school — and what happens when the girlfriend of one of them goes missing during their final year.
- McCormack, Derek
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The most shocking story ever shown on the silver screen! It's also the tale of Jimmie — a country music singer dying of tuberculosis — and Carrie, his wife, who tries to save him by selling her soul to a devil who designs haute couture clothing! Elsa is a powerful Parisian dress designer, and a vampire. She wants to make Carrie look beautiful, smell beautiful — and then she wants to eat her! Will Carrie survive as her slave? Will Jimmie be cured? Starring a host of Hollywood's brightest stars, including Coco Chanel, Lon Chaney and The Carter Family, The Show that Smells is a thrilling tale of hillbillies, high fashion and horror!
- Mercurio, Jed
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Mercurio presents an explosive, provocative fictional work about the life and times — and sexual dalliances — of John F. Kennedy during his administration.
- Rakha, Naseem
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"This complex, layered story of a family's journey toward justice and forgiveness comes together through spellbinding storytelling." Publishers Weekly
- Thornton, Tim
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Thornton pens a comic, wildly energetic debut novel set in England during and after the indie music heyday of the 1990s.
Mysteries
- Alleyn, Susanne
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A murdered man is found in a Parisian cemetery in 1786, where struggling writer Aristide Ravel recognizes the strange symbols surrounding the body to be Masonic.
- Baantjer, A. C.
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A strange incident leads Inspector DeKok to discover the disappearance of a woman from an Amsterdam hospital. Upon further investigation, he is surprised to find that three more women have disappeared in the same mysterious way. The seasoned detective soon finds himself following a trail with many twists and turns, losing his way many times but relying on his usual dogged determination and sharp observation to see him through. First published in 1987, the latest translation of the deKok Dutch police procedural will win new readers.
- Blundy, Anna
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Faith Zanetti doesn't much care who put the bomb on flight TAA67, the plane that blew up over the tiny Scottish village of Cairbridge 25 years ago. Wasn't it those Libyan blokes who went to prison? For a woman whose comfort zone is a war zone, it seems like the boring assignment from hell. But as the conspiracy theories start seeming less theoretical, Faith realizes she's skating on thin ice.
- Buzzelli, Elizabeth Kane
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Springtime in northern Michigan: a picture-perfect scene — until struggling mystery writer Emily Kincaid gets a visit from her foul-weather friend Deputy Dolly, who frantically demands Emily's help. Sandy Lake's receding waters have revealed a bullet-pierced skull, along with a keepsake that could mean serious trouble for a man Dolly once loved. As another set of bones surfaces, Emily finds herself wading through Dolly's painful past, digging into Leetsville's dark history, and dodging threats from an outraged Odawa Indian — who may be protecting more than just sacred land.
- Genelin, Michael
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Genelin's darkly compelling second Jana Matinova mystery mixes equal parts lust, betrayal and murder. When Jana's childhood friend Sofia, who campaigns for an anticorruption organization called Transparency in Government, is elected to the Slovakian parliament, neither is prepared for the long-ranging and deadly consequences. Sofia's subsequent entanglement with a male colleague and acceptance of a huge diamond taint Jana's career as a commander in the Bratislavan police force, where she finds herself under investigation for corruption.
- Hockensmith, Steve
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In 1893, Otto Big Red Amlingmeyer and his brother Gustav, Old Red, find themselves in a situation that they never expected. It's enough to confound even that most unconfoundable of men, their mutual inspiration, Sherlock Holmes.
- Hughes, Declan
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Dublin P.I. Ed Loy can't escape the past in this fourth novel in the series from the Shamus Award-winning author, hailed as the best Irish crime novelist of his generation.
- Jenkins, Emyl
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Hired to assess the value of broken and missing antiques following a suspicious burglary at a Virginia manor house, intrepid appraiser and amateur sleuth Sterling Glass finds that her job is more complicated than she'd anticipated.
- Kane, Cornelius
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Animal Farm meets The Simpsons in this inventive twist on the hard-boileddetective novel, featuring a world made up exclusively of cats, dogs and one ruthless fox.
- Konrath, J. A.
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Jacqueline Jack Daniels thought she could rest easy once she locked up the nefarious Alex Kork for life, but she hadn't counted on Kork's incredible ability to get out of any situation. Now the insane serial killer is again on the loose — and once more, Jack has to make Chicago safe from this deviant woman's evil ways.
- McIntosh, Pat
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In Sir William's remote part of Scotland it seems almost possible that a young boy could have been stolen away by the fairies and returned 40 years later without having visibly aged. And if the boy isn't Davie Drummond, who is he? Then he suffers a succession of near-fatal "accidents." Could there be a connection with four other local singers who have vanished, one of them with political information of value to Scotland's enemies? Gil Cunningham and his wife Alys have been sent to Perthshire to investigate.
- Nadel, Barbara
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Confined to his home on sick leave (and prevented from sneaking his beloved brandy and cigars), Inspector Ikmen of the Istanbul police is forced to hand his latest case over to his protegee, the newly-promoted Suleyman. That's too bad, because the aristocratic Suleyman knows nothing about Arabesk, the throbbing, deeply sentimental music that is adored by Turkey's working classes, and the case is drenched in those mournful melodies.
- Parker, Ann
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The summer of 1880: although possible investment in Leadville's silver mines is a main reason that former president and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant is now touring this city at the top of the Rockies, others in his retinue and in town are enticed by other visions. As part owner of the Silver Queen Saloon, Inez Stannert has often observed the ruination that comes from yielding to temptation. Still, that knowledge hasn't stopped Inez from striking a backroom deal with upscale brothel madam Frisco Flo, a deal that Inez gambles will make her financially independent.
- Pepper, Andrew
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St. Giles, London, 1829. Three people have been brutally murdered and the city simmers with anger and political unrest. Pyke, sometime Bow Street Runner, sometime crook, finds himself accidentally embroiled in the murder investigation but quickly realizes that he has stumbled into something more sinister and far-reaching.
- Quartey, Kwei J.
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A lyrical and captivating mystery that brings to life the majesty and charm of Ghana — from the capital city of Accra to a small community where long-buried secrets are about to rise to the surface.
- Vargas, Fred
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This first novel in the series praised for its intelligence, wit and macabre imagination introduces the unorthodox detective Commissaire Adamsberg — one of the most engaging characters in contemporary crime fiction.
- Wilson, Laura
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London, June 1940. When the body of silent screen star Mabel Morgan is found impaled on a wrought-iron fence, the coroner rules her death as suicide. Detective Ted Stratton is not convinced and suspects that Morgan's fatal fall may have been the work of one of Soho's most notorious gangsters. Meanwhile, MI5 agent Diana Calthrop is leading a covert operation when she discovers that her boss is involved in espionage. Only when Stratton's path crosses Diana's does the pair start to uncover the truth. And soon they also begin to realize they like each other a little too much.
Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
- Abraham, Daniel
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Fifteen years have passed since the devastating war between the Galt Empire and the cities of the Khaiem in which the Khaiem’s poets and their magical power known as “andat” were destroyed, leaving the women of the Khaiem and the men of Galt infertile. The emperor of the Khaiem tries to form a marriage alliance between his son and the daughter of a Galtic lord, hoping the Khaiem men and Galtic women will produce a new generation to help create a peaceful future. But Maati, a poet who has been in hiding for years, driven by guilt over his part in the disastrous end of the war, defies tradition and begins training female poets.
- Banks, Iain M
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Sharrow was once the leader of a personally-attuned combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the civilization based around the planet Golter. Now she is hunted by the Huhsz, a religious cult which believes that she is the last obstacle before the faith’s apotheosis, and her only hope of escape is to find the last of the apocalyptically powerful Lazy Guns before the Huhsz find her.
- Briggs, Patricia
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Mercy Thompson is a walker, a magical being with the power to transform into a coyote. She lives on the fine line dividing the everyday world from a darker dimension, observing the supernatural community while standing apart. When Mercy travels to the Tri-Cities of Washington State for a job interview, she quickly finds herself in the middle of a gang war between rival packs of werewolves. And as if fangs and fur weren’t bad enough, Mercy must deal with the scariest creature of all: her mother, who is convinced that Mercy is making a mess of her life and determined to set her daughter on the right course.
- Elrod, P. N.
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Today’s hottest urban fantasy authors — Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher and more — come together in this delicious brew that crackles and boils over with tales of powerful witches and dark magic!
- Hunt, Stephen
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Professor Amelia Harsh is obsessed with finding the lost civilization of Camlantis, a legendary city from prehistory that is said to have conquered hunger, war and disease with the creation of the perfect pacifist society. Without official funding, Amelia is forced to accept an offer of patronage from Abraham Quest, the man she blames for her father’s bankruptcy and suicide. She hates him, but he has something that Amelia desperately wants — evidence that proves that Camlantis existed and that the Camlantean ruins are buried under one of the sea-like lakes that dot the murderous jungles of Liongeli.
- Mann, George
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Welcome to the bizarre and dangerous world of Victorian London, a city teetering on the edge of revolution. Its people are ushering in a new era of technology, dazzled each day by unfamiliar inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, while ground trains rumble through the streets and clockwork automatons are programmed to carry out menial tasks in the offices of lawyers, policemen and journalists. But beneath this shiny veneer of progress lurks a sinister side.
- McDonald, Ian
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It all began 30 years ago on Mars, with a greenperson. But by the time it all finished, the town of Desolation Road had experienced every conceivable abnormality: from Adam Black's Wonderful Traveling Chautauqua and Educational ‘Stravaganza (complete with its very own captive angel) to the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar. Its inhabitants ranged from Dr. Alimantando, the town’s founder and resident genius, to the Babooshka, a barren grandmother who just wants her own child — grown in a fruit jar; from Rajendra Das, mechanical hobo who has a mystical way with machines to the Gallacelli brothers, identical triplets who fell in love with — and married — the same woman.
- McDonald, Sandra
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Chief Terry Myell died and became a god. Now he’s back to life, careening around space and time at the behest of a voice that told him to save all of mankind. Helping and hindering this quest are his elderly wife, his young wife, grandchildren who haven’t been born yet, romantic rivals he hasn’t even met, a descendant from 2000 years in the future, and an alien nemesis who calls itself the Flying Doctor. Life in the military has never been so complicated.
- Parker, K J
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When his father, brothers and uncles wiped each other out in a murderous civil war, Nicephorus was forced to leave the University and become emperor. Seventy-seven emperors had met violent deaths over the past 100 years, most of them murdered by their own soldiers. Hardly surprising, then, that Nico should want to fill the major offices of state with the only people he knew he could trust, his oldest and closest friends. But there’s danger on the northern frontier, and Nico daren’t send a regular general up there with an army, for fear of a military coup. He turns to his best friend Phormio, who reluctantly takes the job.
- Ringo, John
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Earth’s Posleen invasion is contained — at a huge cost in human blood and anguish. Now hard-nosed commander Mike O’Neal discovers that he’s saved our world only to unwittingly lead humanity into slavery.
- Stross, Charles
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The Hugo Award-winning author delivers a rich selection of speculative fiction — including a novella original to this volume — brought together for the first time in one collection.
- Weber, David
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The Kingdom of Charis and the Kingdom of Chisholm have joined together, pledged to stand against the tyranny of a corrupt Church. The youthful Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm has wed King Cayleb of Charis, forging a single dynasty, a single empire, dedicated to the defense of human freedom. Crowned Empress of that empire, Sharleyan has found in Cayleb’s arms the love she never dared hope for in a “marriage of state.” In Cayleb’s cause, his defiance of the ruthless Group of Four who govern mother Church, she has found the task to which she can commit her mind and her courage. It is a cause for which she was born.