Prepub Alert
By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 8/15/2006
Fiction | Nonfiction
Fiction Clark, Mary Higgins & Carol Higgins Clark. Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea. Scribner. Nov. 2006. 224p. ISBN 1-4165-3552-7 [ISBN 978-1-4165-3552-2]. $22. CD: S & S. Audio.The day after Christmas, a host of Clark & Clark regulars—amateur sleuth Alvirah Meehan and husband Willy, plus P.I. Regan Reilly and groom Jack—join a cruise with 50 writers and fans at a mystery seminar. Alas, the deceased writer to whom the seminar is dedicated seems to have shown up as well.
Cussler, Clive & Dirk Cussler. Treasure of Khan: A Dirk Pitt® Novel. Putnam. Dec. 2006. 544p. ISBN 0-399-15369-1. $27.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
After rescuing an oil survey team from a towering wave on Lake Baikal, Dirk Pitt finds himself deeply at odds with a Mongolian mogul intent on restoring the glory of the dreaded Genghis Khan himself. With a national tour.
Hamilton, Laurell K. Mistral’s Kiss. Ballantine. Dec. 2006. 384p. ISBN 0-345-44358-6 [ISBN 978-0-345-44358-8]. $24.95.
Time for Meredith Gentry to give up detective work and conceive an heir to the Faerie world’s Unseelie Court. Too bad her magic is off, even as dark curses are starting to do their stuff. With a five-city tour.
Iles, Greg. True Evil. Scribner. Dec. 2006. 512p. ISBN 0-7432-9249-9 [ISBN 978-0-7432-9249-8]. $25.95.
When FBI agent Karen Crowe’s sister dies suddenly, whispering accusations about her husband, Crowe is on the case. Soon she’s linking up with a local doctor whom she realizes might be in danger of sudden death as well.
Kellerman, Faye & Jonathan Kellerman. Capital Crimes. Ballantine. Dec. 2006. NAp. ISBN 0-345-46798-1 [ISBN 978-0-345-46798-0]. $24.95.
The Kellermans join forces a second time to pack one book with two novellas—“Thy Sister’s Keeper” and “Music City Breakdown”—that bring in regulars Alex Delaware as well as Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus as background characters.
Kelman, Judith. Backward in High Heels. Severn House. Dec. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-7278-6443-2 [ISBN 978-0-7278-6443-7]. $28.95.
Be forewarned: popular crime/horror purveyor Kelman is switching tracks and trying out mommy lit. Sure, the office where Maggie’s husband worked has burned to ash. But he was off with a gorgeous grad student, and now Maggie has to figure out life on her own.
Koontz, Dean. Brother Odd. Bantam. Dec. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-553-80480-4 [ISBN 978-0-553-80480-5]. $27. lrg. prnt. Cassette/CD: Random Audio.
Odd that Odd Thomas should leave his beloved Pico Mundo. But given his knack for being in the wrong place at the right time, maybe it’s not so odd that he finds a killer running loose at the mountain monastery to which he has retreated.
K’wan. Hood Rat. Griffin: St. Martin’s. Nov. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-312-36008-8 [ISBN 978-0-312-36008-5]. pap. $14.95.
Street lit king K’wan returns with the story of four hood rats—i.e., women of uncertain repute—as they run a race to survive the ghetto.
Pynchon, Thomas. Against the Day. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Dec. 2006. 900p. ISBN 1-59420-120-X. $35.
This just in, and not all the details are in place. But it can be said that the reclusive author pursues a tale that sprawls from the Chicago World’s Fair to post–World War I, taking in London, Mexico, the Balkans, and more.
Shields, Jody. The Crimson Portrait. Little, Brown. Dec. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-316-78528-8 [ISBN 978-0-316-78528-0]. $23.99.
Having captured readers’ attention with her debut, The Fig Eater, Shields draws on actual events to craft this tale of a young widow mourning her husband’s death in World War I. Seeking refuge in a relationship with a wounded soldier whose face is obscured by bandages, she soon determines to remake him—literally—in her husband’s image.
Smith, Kyle. A Christmas Caroline. Morrow. Dec. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-06-111987-3 [ISBN 978-0-06-111987-3]. pap. $14.95. CD: HarperAudio.
Fashionista Caroline might be an editor at the high-style magazine Presents, but she’s miserable at Christmas. Then the ghost of her dead roommate glides in to say that redemption is at hand with the visitation of three wily spirits. From the author of Love Monkey.
Spring, Michelle. The Night Lawyer: A Novel of Suspense. Ballantine. Dec. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-345-43746-2 [ISBN 978-0-345-43746-4]. $24.95.
There’s one thing this stalker knows for sure: the Thames-side docks are really quiet when Ellie arrives each night at her office to proof the morning edition of the daily for which she works. Based on a true story—Spring’s own.
Twining, James. The Black Sun. HarperCollins. Dec. 2006. 384p. ISBN 0-06-076214-4 [ISBN 978-
0-06-076214-8]. $24.95.
What do a stolen Enigma machine, the amputated arm of a Holocaust survivor, and a painting lifted from a synagogue have in common? CIA dropout Tom Kirk (fresh from Twining’s debut, The Double Eagle) is about to find out.
VanLiere, Donna. The Angels of Morgan Hill. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2006. 224p. ISBN 0-312-33452-4 [ISBN 978-0-312-33452-9]. pap. $14.95.
VanLiere follows up her best-selling “Christmas Hope” series with the story of the first African American family to move into 1940s Morgan Hill, TN. Little Jane Gable notices that their presence upsets the town’s delicate balance, but her family rises to the occasion when tragedy strikes the newcomers. With a national tour.
Waller, Robert James. The Long Night of Winchell Dear. Shaye Areheart Bks: Crown. Nov. 2006. 176p. ISBN 0-307-20996-2 [ISBN 978-0-307-20996-2]. $21. CD: Random Audio
Winchell Dear has quit gambling to live peaceably on a little ranch out West. But he gears up for action when a bunch of gents arrive, semiautomatics at the ready. Just what is it about his property that intrigues them? Nonfiction Bernstein, Amy D. & Peter W. Bernstein, eds. The New York Times Practical Guide to Practically Everything. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2006. 786p. ISBN 0-312-35388-X [ISBN 978-0-312-35388-9]. $29.95.
Want to figure out how to audition for a reality TV show? Or access your FBI file? There’s lots of juicy information here, in categories ranging from “Grammar, Etiquette, and Style” to “Everyday Science.”
Cheever, Susan. American Bloomsbury: The Lives of Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts from 1840 to 1868. S. & S. Dec. 2006. 240p. ISBN 0-7432-6461-4 [ISBN 978-0-7432-6461-7]. $26.
The award-winning author of books like Note Found in a Bottle pays a visit to the Transcendentalist circle, dusting off their reputations to reveal the wild souls beneath.
Dyson, Freeman J. The Scientist as Rebel. Little Bookroom: New York Review Bks. Nov. 2006. 256p. ISBN 1-59017-216-7. $22.95.
Helping to illuminate the culture wars, the Nobel prize–winning physicist collects papers that address not only the practice of science but also its relation to religion, literature, and society.
Geck, Martin. Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work. Harcourt. Dec. 2006. 736p. ISBN 0-15-100648-2 [ISBN 978-0-15-100648-9]. $40.
A famed musicologist at Germany’s University of Dortmund, Geck presents the life while thoroughly exploring the work of the immortal Bach.
Gruber, Ruth. Witness. Schocken. Dec. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-8052-4243-0 [ISBN 978-0-8052-4243-0]. $27.50.
As a young woman, Gruber had some life—she was the world’s youngest Ph.D. (at age 20) and an international correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune at age 24. Then she became enmeshed in humanitarian causes, first by leading Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to America. Now, at 94, she recalls it all.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama. How To See Yourself as You Really Are. Atria: S. & S. Dec. 2006. 224p. ISBN 0-7432-9045-3 [ISBN 978-0-7432-9045-6]. $20.
More than inspiration, this practical book has exercises to help us drop our misconceptions and live lovingly in the world.
Lacey, Robert. Great Tales from English History. Bk. 3: Captain Cook, Samuel Johnson, Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin, Edward the Abdicator, and More. Little, Brown. Dec. 2006. 272p. ISBN 0-316-11459-6 [ISBN 978-0-316-11459-2]. $23.99.
Not a few colorful characters appear in the pages of Lacey’s account of English history, which wraps up a trilogy as it moves from 1690 to 1953.
Love, Courtney. Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love. Farrar. Nov. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-86547-959-3 [ISBN 978-0-86547-959-3]. $30.
Love uses letters, diary entries, poems, song lyrics, show flyers, and photographs to reconstruct a life lived on the edge. With a four-city tour.
Mollica, Richard F., M.D. Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World. Harcourt. Dec. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-15-101036-6 [ISBN 978-0-15-101036-3]. $26.
A Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry considers the consequences of violence, whether from war or natural disaster, and shows us how people manage to heal.
Pierce, Charles P. Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything. Farrar. Nov. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-374-29923-4 [ISBN 978-0-374-29923-1]. $23.
A regular on NPR’s It’s Only a Game, Pierce profiles Tom Brady, one of the more remarkable quarterbacks to come along in the last several decades.
Rose, David. They Call Me Naughty Lola. Scribner. Dec. 2006. 192p. ISBN 1-4165-4029-6 [ISBN 978-1-4165-4029-8]. $16.
They may be bald, aging, or chubby, but as this collection reveals, those who place personals in the London Review of Books are ever hopeful.
Traub, James. The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power. Farrar. Nov. 2006. 448p. ISBN 0-374-18220-5 [ISBN 978-0-374-18220-5]. $25.
A contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, Traub assesses not only high-profile UN secretary-general Kofi Annan but also the problems facing the UN.
Vienne, Véronique. The Art of Being a Woman: A Simple Guide to Everyday Love and Laughter. Clarkson Potter: Crown. Dec. 2006. 128p. ISBN 0-307-33724-3 [ISBN 978-0-307-33724-5]. $18.
Following up such best-selling inspiration as The Art of Doing Nothing, Vienne shows women how to do something for themselves—for a change.
