Fiction in September 2003…

Coming in September 2003… debut thrillers from Berry and Spiegelman compete with works from veterans Palahniuk and Perry. Nonfiction features an especially large cast of well-knowns, from Salzman and Kidder to Didion and Sheehy. And don't forget the Dalai Lama.

BEGLEY, Louis.
Shipwreck.
Knopf. Sept. 2003. 256p. ISBN 1-4000-4098-1. $23.
A celebrated American novelist who begins to doubt his capabilities feels compelled to spill dark erotic secrets to a shadowy narrator. Let's hope the celebrated author of About Schmidt isn't being too autobiographical.

BERRY, Steve.
The Amber Room.
Ballantine. Sept. 2003. 400p. ISBN 0-345-46003-0. $24.95.
After an American contractor announces his intention to recover priceless panels that the Nazis stole decades ago from the Amber Room of Russia's Summer Palace, an old man fascinated with the story is brutally murdered. His daughter heads to Europe to ferret out the connection. A splashy debut.

CLEAGE, Pearl.
Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do.
One World: Ballantine. Sept. 2003. 256p. ISBN 0-345-45606-8. $23.95.
Regina has dedicated her life to helping her husband, but she needs help herself when he phones to say he's leaving her—and promptly dies.

DAVIS-GOFF, Annabel.
The Fox's Walk.
Harcourt. Sept. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-15-101020-X. $25.
Davis-Goff's This Cold Country and The Dower House were considered essential reading for lovers of romance and Irish literature alike. So one can have high hopes for this tale of a little girl's sojourn on her grandmother's estate in County Waterford during World War II.

GREEN, Jane.
Straight Talking.
Broadway. Sept. 2003. 304p. ISBN 0-7679-1559-3. pap. $11.95.
Green's debut, a tale of the flubbed affairs of the hapless Tasha, finally hits America.

HUNEVEN, Michelle.
Jamesland.
Knopf. Sept. 2003. 320p. ISBN 0-375-41382-0. $24.
Pete has lost everything. Alice is stalled in a bad affair. And her Aunt Kate is obsessed with ancestor William James. In a search for meaning, they all attend struggling minister Helen Harland's midweek services. Whiting Award winner Huneven will do a seven-city tour.

LETHEM, Jonathan.
The Fortress of Solitude.
Doubleday. Sept. 2003. 640p. ISBN 0-385-50069-5. $26.
Audio: unabridged. Random Audio. ISBN 0-7393-0646-4. $39.95.
The consequences of a friendship between a black boy and a white boy in Seventies Brooklyn; from a National Book Critics Circle award winner.

O'CONNELL, Carol.
Dead Famous: A Mallory Novel.
Putnam. Sept. 2003. 304p. ISBN 0-399-15084-6. $24.95.
In her seventh outing, Kathy Mallory must discover what connects the deaths of an FBI agent and the entire jury of a notorious trial.

PALAHNIUK, Chuck.
Diary.
Doubleday. Sept. 2003. 256p. ISBN 0-385-50947-2. $24.95.
CD: abridged. Random Audio. ISBN 0-7393-0284-2. $39.95.
Misty, who begins her diary as her husband lies unconscious after attempting suicide, is soon inspired to take up painting again. But why are her mother-in-law and doctor absconding with the canvases?

PERRY, Anne.
No Graves as Yet.
Ballantine. Sept. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-345-45652-1. $25.95.
Even as an assassination rocks Sarajevo, Cambridge professor Joseph Reavley and his brother, Matthew (who's in the Secret Intelligence Service), discover that the murder of their parents has international implications. The start of a five-book series set during World War II.

SPIEGELMAN, Peter.
Black Maps.
Knopf. Sept. 2003. 304p. ISBN 1-4000-4075-2. $22.95.
John March abandons banking for life as a rural deputy sheriff. But personal tragedy sends him back to New York, where his most recent case as a P.I. involves blackmail. Knopf paid a tidy sum for Spiegelman's first two books.

WILLETT, Sabin.
Present Value.
Villard. Sept. 2003. 336p. ISBN 1-4000-6086-9. $24.95.
When Fritz is thrown in jail for insider trading, his lawyer wife must figure out how to pay for the mansion, the summer home, the private schools, the therapist…. Here, Willett goes beyond the thriller aspects of his first two works, The Deal and The Betrayal.