Prepub Alert
By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 3/1/2006
Fiction | Nonfiction
Arana, Marie. Cellophane. Dial: Random. Jul. 2006. 416p. ISBN 0-385-33664-0. $24.
Having earned a National Book Award nomination for her memoir, American Chica, the Washington Post Book World’s editor is now chancing fiction. Her blazing story features an American engineer who situates his paper factory where all the trees are: the Amazon rain forest. Barnes, Steven. Great Sky Woman. One World: Ballantine. Jul. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-345-45900-8. $24.95.
Long ago, in faraway Africa, the Ibandi live happily in the shadow of Great Sky Mountain (now called Kilimanjaro). Then the nasty Mt*tk start invading their territory, and two Ibandi youngsters must beg Father Sky for help. From a nominee for Hugo, Cable Ace, and Endeavor awards; to be promoted at the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles this September.Cook, Robin. Crisis. Putnam. Jul. 2006. 480p. ISBN 0-399-15357-8. $25.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
What’s even scarier than a medical thriller by Cook? A medical malpractice suit—at least if you’re a doctor. Dr. Craig Bowman is pretty shocked when he gets slapped with one, since he’s in the position to handpick his patients. Then brother-in-law Jack, a medical examiner, flippantly recommends exhuming the corpse that occasioned the suit, and big trouble comes out of that grave. Fesperman, Dan. The Prisoner of Guantánamo. Knopf. Jul. 2006. 336p. ISBN 1-4000-4466-9. $24.
FBI agent Revere Falk is interrogating a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay when he’s asked to investigate the death of a U.S. soldier whose body has washed up on Cuban territory. When he starts getting help (of a questionable sort) from the Defense Intelligence Agency, Falk knows that there’s something special about this case. From a foreign correspondent who routinely wins awards for his thrillers; with a three-city tour.Goldstein, Paul. Errors and Omissions. Doubleday. Jul. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-385-51717-3. $24.95. CD: Random Audio.
It’s a simple request: Michael Seeley, intellectual property litigator extraordinaire, is supposed to confirm that United Pictures really does own the rights to its lucrative Spykiller franchise. But the case leads him to events that transpired during the blacklist era and, ultimately, the Nazi occupation of Poland. Hooper, Kay. Sleeping with Fear: A Bishop/Special Crimes Unit Novel. Bantam. Jul. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-553-80318-2. $25; lrg. prnt. Random. ISBN 0-7393-2648-1. $27.
Agent Riley Crane of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit has a problem: she’s just awakened with her memory full of holes and her face bathed in blood that doesn’t appear to be hers. Howard, Linda. Cover of Night. Ballantine. Jul. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-345-48650-1. $25.95.
Some rough types have taken over Cate Nightingale’s little bed-and-breakfast, and the hero of the day turns out to be quiet handyman Cal, who throws them out and then steals away with Cate to get help from a neighboring village. McBain, Ed. Learning To Kill. Otto Penzler Bk: Harcourt. Jul. 2006. 560p. ISBN 0-15-101222-9. $25.
Before his death in 2005, McBain collected 25 of the best stories he wrote under the names Evan Hunter, Richard Marsten, and Hunt Collins—before he became legendary mystery writer Ed McBain, author of the “87th Precinct” novels.McGuane, Thomas. Gallatin Canyon. Knopf. Jul. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-4000-4156-2. $24.
McGuane revisits Big Sky country and other locales, from Massachusetts to Lake Michigan, in this collection of ten new stories. With a six-city tour.Mason, Bobbie Ann. Nancy Culpepper. Random. Jul. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-375-50718-3. $22.95.
Our eponymous heroine was raised in rural Kentucky but educated in the Northeast, where she now lives with her family, and she works out the feeling of being caught between two worlds in the series of interlinked stories Mason crafts here. Minot, Eliza. The Brambles. Knopf. Jul. 2006. 256p. ISBN 1-4000-4269-0. $23.95.
No, this is not a novel about a briar patch. The Brambles are three adult siblings—overwhelmed mom Margaret, directionless Edie, and suddenly jobless Max—who must re­assess their relationship after a long-buried secret comes out. With a national tour.Oberbeck, Elizabeth Birkelund. The Dressmaker. Holt. Jul. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-8050-8033-3 [ISBN 978-0-8050-8033-9]. $23.
A dressmaker who seems to have arrived in modern-day Paris from another era, fastidious Claude suddenly finds his life coming undone; he’s fallen in love with a woman (appropriately named Valentine) for whom he is making a wedding dress. A promising debut.Peterfreund, Diana. Secret Society Girl: An Ivy League Novel. Delacorte. Jul. 2006. 400p. ISBN 0-385-34002-8. $23.
Amy isn’t well connected, and she’s not even rich, so how did she end up in the very exclusive, very secret society Rose & Grave (read Skull & Bones) at elite Eli University (read Yale)? Yalie Peterfreund’s much-touted debut.Reichs, Kathy. Break No Bones. Scribner. Jul. 2006. 400p. ISBN 0-7432-3349-2 [ISBN 978-0-7432-3349-1]. $25.95. CD: Audioworks.
When students at the archaeological field school where Temperance Brennan is teaching unearth remains that are rather more recent than they had expected, she has to get involved—even if it does mean that her estranged husband gets shot. Rice, Luanne. Sandcastles. Bantam. Jul. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-553-80419-7. $24; lrg. prnt. Random. ISBN 0-7393-2647-3. $27.50. CD: Random Audio.
Honor has been happy teaching art at the Star of the Sea Academy, run by open-minded Sister Bernadette Ignatius. But Honor’s oldest daughter, Regis, won’t be happy unless her long-gone dad makes it to her wedding. His reappearance upends more than just the family.Roberts, Nora writing as J.D. Robb. Born in Death. Putnam. Jul. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-399-15347-0. $24.95.
When Eve Dallas throws a baby shower for friend Mavis and one guest doesn’t show, she’s puzzled. When she checks out the friend’s apartment and finds a neatly wrapped shower gift, ready and waiting, she’s on the case. Scoppettone, Sandra. Too Darn Hot. Ballantine. Jul. 2006. 272p. ISBN 0-345-47812-6. $24.95.
It’s 1940s New York, and P.I. Faye Quick has agreed to find a soldier who’s been AWOL for three days. So what does she find instead? A dead man in the soldier’s hotel room. Shaara, Lila. Dark Circles. Ballantine. Jul. 2006. 464p. ISBN 0-345-48565-3. $24.95.
After modeling, Gina thought life as a professor in a quiet college town would be nice and easy. But then she’s featured in some risque photos posted on the web, and the suspects are students of hers who may also be involved in murder. A debut for Shaara, whose father and brother are best-selling novelists. Steel, Danielle. Coming Out. Delacorte. Jul. 2006. 208p. ISBN 0-385-33832-5. $20; lrg. prnt. Random. ISBN 0-7393-2649-X. $22. Cassette/CD: Random Audio.
All’s well for Olympia Crawford Rubinstein until her twin daughters receive an invitation to a coming-out ball.Thayer, Nancy. The Hot Flash Club Chills Out. Ballantine. Jul. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-345-48553-X. $21.95.
Who knew that housesitting on Nantucket one summer would create such chaos for the indomitable members of the Hot Flash Club?Wu Ming. 54. Harcourt. Jul. 2006. 560p. ISBN 0-15-101380-2. $25.
The authors who gave us Q under the name Luther Blissett have now expanded their ranks and created the Wu Ming Foundation (wu ming means “no name” in Chinese). In this new endeavor, Cary Grant gets a diplomatic mission, Lucky Luciano brings heroin to citizens worldwide, and the Cold War has everybody jumping.
Bamberger, Michael. The Man Who Heard Voices; or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Jul. 2006. 320p. ISBN 1-59240-213-5. $27.50.
Sports Illustrated writer Bamberger (Wonderland) turns the lens on director Shyamalan, who’s responsible for films like The Sixth Sense, The Village, and this summer’s Lady in the Water.Browne, Sylvia with Lindsay Harrison. Insight: Case Files from the Psychic World. Dutton. Jul. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-525-94955-0. $25.95.
What’s life like as a psychic? Browne tells all in this account of various cases she has undertaken, which involve everything from lost pets to past lives. Fine, Cordelia. A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives. Norton. Jul. 2006. 224p. ISBN 0-393-06213-9. $24.95.
“The mind is an enchanted thing...” (says poet Marianne Moore), and it’s also a bit of a trickster. It’s evidently quite prone to wishful thinking and illusions of grandeur, argues Fine, research associate at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. Gilbert, Martin. The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War. Holt. Jul. 2006. 176p. ISBN 0-8050-8127-5 [ISBN 978-0-8050-8127-5]. $24.
Ninety years ago, Allied soldiers clambered into no-man’s land and charged the Germans at the Somme; 20,000 British soldiers would die in a single day, and 300,000 soldiers were lost on both sides in the next several months. A noteworthy historian offers what should be the definitive account.Quammen, David. The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution. Atlas Bk: Norton. Jul. 2006. 192p. ISBN 0-393-05981-2. $22.95.
Reluctant he may have been—it took him over 20 years to write On the Origin of Species after coming up with the idea that evolution entails natural selection—but Darwin created an upheaval that is with us still. The author of Monster of God contemplates the evolution of Darwin’s thought.Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Three New Deals: Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and the Rise of State Power in the 1930s. Metropolitan: Holt. Jul. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-8050-7452-X [ISBN 978-0-8050-7452-9]. $25.
Can the New Deal possibly have anything in common with Nazism and Fascism? Yes, argues Schivelbusch, winner of German’s Heinrich Mann Prize, who points out that all three were spearheaded by a charismatic man who relied on mass propaganda to get his ideas across.
