Fiction in August 2003…

Coming in August 2003… thrillers from Heffernan, Jance, and Robinson but lots more exciting new writers than last issue's column could boast. Hariharan and Leroy break into the U.S. market; writers who've already shown promise, like Croft, Holman, and Leegant, get a chance to shine; and McIntosh plays the brash newcomer. In nonfiction, there's serious consideration of everything from the origins of Homo sapiens to the germ warfare that could bring about our demise.

CROFT, Barbara.
Moon's Crossing.
Mariner: Houghton. Aug. 2003. 192p. ISBN 0-618-34153-6. pap. $12.
Croft's debut comes well recommended; not only did she win a Drue Heinz Literature Prize in 1998, but the novella on which this new work is based won a gold medal from the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society in 2000. Central to this story is a Union Army veteran who attends the World's Colombian Exposition in 1893 and becomes rapidly disillusioned with the corruption that he sees despoiling the American dream.

HARIHARAN, Githa.
In Times of Siege.
Pantheon. Aug. 2003. 240p. ISBN 0-375-42239-0. $22.
Every novelist looks for a fairy godmother, but Hariharan was especially lucky; Toni Morrison herself passed this book to its editor. Hariharan's hero is a milquetoast professor of history in New Delhi who unexpectedly finds himself caring for 24-year-old Meena, a ward he's barely gotten to know, even as fundamentalists disrupt his lectures. Will he rise to the occasion? You bet. Though Hariharan's debut, The Thousand Faces of Night, won the Commonwealth Prize for First Fiction, this is her U.S. debut.

HEFFERNAN, William.
A Time Gone By.
S. & S. Aug. 2003. 304p. ISBN 0-7432-1710-1. $24.
In glittery 1940s New York, overeager detective Jake Downing solved the gruesome murder of a would-be governor by putting an innocent man in the electric chair, making his career but destroying his life. Decades later, he decides to find the real killer. Heffernan racks up his 16th novel in a solid career that has included an Edgar Award for tarnished blue and best sellers like The Dinosaur Club.

HOLMAN, Sheri.
The Mammoth Cheese.
Atlantic Monthly. Aug. 2003. 192p. ISBN 0-87113-900-6. $24.
Holman had a hit with The Dress Lodger, set in 1830s England. Her new novel takes place in contemporary America but also draws on history. The residents of little Three Chimneys, VA, deal with debt and the sorrow brought on by the deaths of 11 babies born to a local woman after fertility treatments by harking back to a Revolutionary-era feat: they try to manufacture a huge hunk of cheese. Wonderfully weird.

HURWITZ, Gregg.
The Kill Clause.
Morrow. Aug. 2003. 384p. ISBN 0-06-053038-3. $24.95.
Audio: abridged audio. HarperAudio. ISBN 0-06-055948-9. $25.95.
"Michael Crichton's heir apparent," enthuses the publicist, but decide for yourself. After his daughter is murdered and her killer freed on a technicality, U.S. Deputy Marshall Tim Rackley looks for justice by joining forces with others who want the death of a loved one avenged. But his plan backfires, and it looks as if he might end up dead himself.

JANCE, J.A.
Exit Wounds.
Morrow. Aug. 2003. 384p. ISBN 0-380-97731-1. $24.95.
lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-06-054549-6. $24.95.
Audio: abridged. HarperAudio. ISBN 0-06-054539-9. $25.95.
CD: abridged. HarperAudio. ISBN 0-06-054538-0. $29.95.
Sheriff Joanna Brady faces her most troubling case yet: the death of a loner and her multitudinous dogs. With a oneday laydown.

LEEGANT, Joan.
An Hour in Paradise: Stories.
Norton. Aug. 2003. 160p. ISBN 0-393-05439-X. $22.95.
A drug dealer turned yeshiva student who comforts AIDS patients, an American in Safed who confronts Kabbalist mysteries, a rabbi whose minyan is visited by Siamese twins who might literally be angelic—all of Leegant's characters have their "hour in Paradise." Having won awards for her short fiction, Leegant finally gets a collection.

LEROY, Margaret.
Postcards from Berlin.
Little, Brown. Aug. 2003. 304p. ISBN 0-316-73813-1. $22.95.
A popular novelist in Great Britain, Leroy finally gets her chance in this country with the story of a woman whose hidden past intrudes on her present happiness and threatens her daughter's well-being.

McINTOSH, Matthew.
Well.
Grove. Aug. 2003. 276p. ISBN 0-8021-1751-1. $24.
In working-class Seattle, a range of characters seek the light through sex, drugs, and apocalyptic dreams. McIntosh is being touted as a hot young writer—he's 26 and is set for a five-city tour—and he would seem to merit the praise ("highly original," "a progressive new voice") that the publisher is throwing his way. Anyone who publishes in both Ploughshares and Playboy, where this work has been excerpted, has to be pretty distinctive.

NELSON, Kent.
Land That Moves, Land That Stands Still.
Viking. Aug. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-670-03226-3. $24.95.
Widowed Mattie joins with college-age daughter Shelley, ranch hand Dawn, and a teenaged American Indian boy to make Mattie's ailing alfalfa ranch a real home. Nelson won an Edward Abbey Prize for Ecofiction. With a five-city author tour.

ROBINSON, Patrick.
Barracuda 945.
HarperCollins. Aug. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-06-008662-9. $25.95.
lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-06-055923-3. $25.95.
Audio: abridged. HarperAudio. ISBN 0-06-054854-1. $25.95.
CD: abridged. HarperAudio. ISBN 0-06-055635-8. $29.95.
Terrorists get hold of a Russian nuclear submarine and head for the United States. There's a one-day laydown; let's hope the terrorists also lay down their arms.

TANENBAUM, Robert.
Resolved.
Atria: S. & S. Aug. 2003. 400p. ISBN 0-7434-5286-0. $26.
lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-7435-6762-0. $25.
Audio: abridged. S. & S. Audio. ISBN 0-7435-2987-1. $26.
CD: abridged. S. & S. Audio. ISBN 0-7435-2988-X. $30.
No word yet on the plot of Tanenbaum's latest, but we're betting it features the popular Butch Karp–Marlene Ciampi duo.