Fiction in October 2003…

COMING IN OCTOBER 2003… varied fiction, from thrill-a-minute Burke to up-to-the-minute Thirlwell, from topical novelists Hamill and Ignatieff to the dreamier Eagle and Karon, and from newcomer Docx to grande dame Hazzard. In nonfiction, look for politics, economics, and novelists-on-loan Harrison, Turow, and Wallace.

BALDACCI, David.
Split Second.
Warner. Sept. 2003. 416p. ISBN 0-446-53089-1. $26.95.
lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-446-53312-2. $26.95.
Audio: abridged. Time Warner Audio. ISBN 1-58621-581-7. $26.98.
Audio: unabridged. Time Warner Audio. ISBN 1-58621-583-3. $39.98.
CD: abridged. Time Warner Audio. ISBN 1-58621-582-5. $31.98.
Former Secret Service Agent Sean King tries for vindication, having lost his job when the candidate he was protecting lost his life.

BUJOLD, Lois McMaster.
Paladin of Souls.
Eos: Morrow. Oct. 2003. 480p. ISBN 0-380-97902-0. $24.95.
Dowager Royina commences a journey of atonement, but this sequel shows that The Curse of Chalion is still with us.

BURKE, James Lee.
Last Car to Elysian Fields.
S. & S. Oct. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-7432-4542-3. $25.
Audio: abridged. S. & S. ISBN 0-7435-3329-1. $26.
CD: abridged. S. & S. ISBN 0-7435-3330-5. $30.
Only Dave Robicheaux knows what a deadly car crash and an attack on a priest have in common, and in this new work—soon to be an HBO series—he's telling.

CORNWELL, Bernard.
Heretic.
HarperCollins. Oct. 2003. 320p. ISBN 0-06-053049-9. $24.95.
lrg. prnt. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-056998-0. $24.95.
Audio: abridged. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-056613-2. $25.95.
Expert archer Thomas of Hookton is shunned for refusing to help his fellow soldiers in the burning of a heretic—and then faces the Black Death. Cornwell's most popular series.

CROMBIE, Deborah.
Now May You Weep.
Morrow. Oct. 2003. 384p. ISBN 0-06-052523-1. $23.95.
For Crombie's popular combo, Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James, Scotland doesn't mean tartans—it means murder.

DOCX, Edward.
The Calligrapher.
Houghton. Oct. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-618-34397-0. $24.
Like John Donne, whose Songs and Sonnets he is transcribing, London calligrapher Jasper aims to be a heartbreaker—until he falls for Madeleine. A British cultural critic's debut.

EAGLE, Kathleen.
Night Falls Like Silk.
Morrow. Oct. 2003. 368p. ISBN 0-06-621470-X. $24.95.
Spurred by reader requests, Rita Award winner Eagle brings back the protagonist of The Night Remembers and introduces him to a lovely art dealer whose drawings start disappearing.

EDDINGS, David & Leigh Eddings.
The Elder Gods: The Dreamers, Bk. 1.
Aspect: Warner. Oct. 2003. 400p. ISBN 0-446-53221-5. $25.95.
The launch of another series.

ELDERKIN, Susan.
The Voices.
Grove. Oct. 2003. 336p. ISBN 0-8021-1757-0. $24.
Elderkin must be good: she was picked by Granta as one of its Best Young British Writers Under 40 in 2003 and by Orange Futures as one of 21 Young Women Authors To Watch. Here, an Australian boy's fascination with Aborigine culture proves his undoing.

FUGUET, Alberto.
The Movies of My Life/Las Peliculas de Mi Vida.
Rayo: HarperCollins. Oct. 2003. 304p. English: ISBN 0-06-053462-1. $24.95. Spanish: ISBN 0-06-055940-3. $24.95.
You've seen him on the cover of Newsweek (May 6, 2002), celebrated as the leader of the Latin American literary movement McOndo, which challenges magical realism. Now you can actually read Chilean author Fuguet, who here crafts the story of a Chilean seismologist in California, told via movies he has seen. With an eight-city author tour.

HAGEDORN, Jessica.
Dream Jungle.
Viking. Oct. 2003. 320p. ISBN 0-670-88458-8. $23.95.
Hagedorn, whose Dogeaters was nominated for a National Book Award, uses the discovery of a Stone Age tribe (a hoax, perhaps?) to retell the history of the Philippines under Marcos.

HAIG, Brian.
Private Sector.
Warner. Sept. 2003. 400p. ISBN 0-446-53178-2. $24.95.
Audio: abridged. Time Warner Audio. ISBN 1-58621-503-5. $25.98.
For army lawyer Sean Drummond, working at the DC law firm to which he has been loaned can be, literally, murder.

HAMILL, Denis.
The Sins of Two Fathers.
Atria: S. & S. Oct. 2003. 384p. ISBN 0-7434-6298-X. $25.
Hotshot journalist Hank Tobin, whose brutal exposé wrecked one man's life, will soon discover the meaning of revenge—even as a mosque burns in Brooklyn.

HAZZARD, Shirley.
The Great Fire.
Farrar. Oct. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-374-16644-7. $24.
More than two decades after winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Transit of Venus, this splendid writer finally hazards another novel. Her "great fire" is World War II.

HICKAM, Homer.
The Keeper's Son.
Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin's. Oct. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-312-30189-8. $34.95.
The "Rocket Boy" is back with the story of Josh Thurlow, a Coast Guard commander during World War II chasing a U-boat captain who might just know something about his lost brother. With an eight-city author tour.

HUNTER, Stephen.
Havana: A Swagger Family Novel.
S. & S. Oct. 2003. 480p. ISBN 0-7432-3808-7. $25.
It's 1953, and ex-marine Earl Swagger has a new job: to head south and assassinate a charismatic young firebrand named Fidel.

IGNATIEFF, Michael.
Charlie Johnson in the Flames.
Grove. Oct. 2003. 224p. ISBN 0-8021-1755-4. $24.
Both a fine novelist (Scar Tissue was short-listed for the Booker) and director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Ignatieff combines his interests in this story of an American journalist in the Balkans who seeks vengeance when the woman protecting him is burned to death.

JANOWITZ, Tama.
Peyton Amberg.
St. Martin's. Oct. 2003. 336p. ISBN 0-312-31844-8. $24.95.
A married woman loses everything as she tramps from paramour to paramour.

KALAM, Murad.
Night Journey.
S. & S. Oct. 2003. 304p. ISBN 0-7432-4418-4. $23.
Here's one Harvard Law grad who opted not to write a legal thriller. Instead, Kalam sets Golden Gloves heavyweight champ Eddie on a journey of discovery that ranges from Las Vegas to the Nation of Islam.

KARON, Jan.
Shepherds Abiding.
Viking. Oct. 2003. 304p. ISBN 0-670-03120-8. $24.95.
Audio: unabridged. Penguin Audio. ISBN 0-14-280019-8. $25.95.
CD: abridged. Penguin Audio. ISBN 0-14-280033-3. $29.95.
Father Tim lovingly restores a vintage nativity scene. Look for a one-day laydown late in October.

LUDLUM, Robert.
The Tristan Betrayal.
St. Martin's. Oct. 2003. 560p. ISBN 0-312-31669-0. $27.95.
Audio: abridged. Audio Renaissance. ISBN 1-55927-936-2. $25.95.
Audio: unabridged. Audio Renaissance. ISBN 1-55927-934-6. $49.95.
CD: abridged. Audio Renaissance. ISBN 1-55927-935-4. $29.95.
To help win the war against the Nazis, Stephen Metcalfe must travel from occupied Paris to Moscow and make contact with a devious ballerina—who happens to be a former lover.

O'NAN, Stewart.
The Night Country; or, The Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Farrar. Oct. 2003. 240p. ISBN 0-374-22215-0. $23.
Three teenagers killed in a car crash come back to haunt the survivors—but from the author of Snow Angels, this should be more than just a ghost story.

PRATCHETT, Terry.
Monstrous Regiment.
HarperCollins. Oct. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-06-001315-X. $24.95.
Audio: unabridged. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-056996-4. $39.95.
When war hits Discworld, Polly joins the army dressed as a man.

RENDELL, Ruth.
The Babes in the Wood: A Chief Inspector Wexford Mystery.
Crown. Oct. 2003. 368p. ISBN 1-4000-4930-X. $25.
Chief Inspector Wexford is on the job when two teenagers and their babysitter go missing.

ROIPHE, Anne.
Secrets of the City.
Shaye Areheart Bks: Crown. Oct. 2003. 352p. ISBN 1-4000-4945-8. $24.
This novel about a big-city mayor emerges whole after having been serialized in New York's Forward magazine.

SLAUGHTER, Karin.
A Faint Cold Fear.
Morrow. Oct. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-688-17458-2. $24.95.
Audio: abridged. Morrow. ISBN 0-06-051468-X. $25.95.
Medical examiner Sara Linton and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver are up against a bunch of suspicious campus suicides.

SPARKS, Nicholas.
The Wedding.
Warner. Sept. 2003. 256p. ISBN 0-446-53245-2. $23.95.
Audio: unabridged. Time Warner Audio. ISBN 1-58621-562-0. $29.98.
CD: unabridged. Time Warner Audio. ISBN 1-58621-563-9. $39.98.
As his daughter's wedding looms, Wilson Lewis—son-in-law to The Notebook's Noah and Allie—decides that he must patch up his own marriage.

STEPHENSON, Neal.
Quicksilver: The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1.
Morrow. Oct. 2003. 944p. ISBN 0-380-97742-7. $27.95.
This follow-up to the best-selling Cryptonomicon features Daniel, who's overshadowed by pal Isaac Newton; Jack, King of the Vagabonds; and Eliza, who has escaped from a Turkish harem.

THIRLWELL, Adam.
Politics.
Fourth Estate: HarperCollins. Oct. 2003. 256p. ISBN 0-00-716366-5. $22.95.
That's sexual politics. One of Granta's 20 Best Novelists Under 40, Thirlwell introduces a ménage à trois involving a father and daughter, with references to everything from Kundera and Mandelstam to fluffy pink handcuffs.

URIS, Leon.
O'Hara's Choice.
HarperCollins. Oct. 2003. 496p. ISBN 0-06-056873-9. $25.95.
lrg. prnt. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-057001-6. $25.95.
Audio: abridged. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-056968-9. $25.95.
Audio: unabridged. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-056970-0. $39.95.
CD: abridged. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-056969-7. $25.95.
The son of legendary marine Paddy O'Hara must choose between soldiering and love.

VEGA YUNQUÉ, Edgardo.
No Matter How Much You Promise To Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain't Never Coming Home Again: A Symphonic Novel.
Farrar. Oct. 2003. 624p. ISBN 0-374-22311-4. $27.
Half Puerto Rican and half Irish, Vidamía Farrell seeks out her long-lost father, a jazz pianist who abandoned music when his hands were maimed in Vietnam.

WHITE, Edmund.
Fanny.
Ecco: HarperCollins. Oct. 2003. 320p. ISBN 0-06-000484-3. $24.95.
Reimagining the life of a renegade Scottish gentlewoman Fanny Wright.