Alfred Hitchcock rigorously controlled his public image, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring out all others. In this gripping short biography, Peter Ackroyd wrests the director’s chair back from the master of control to reveal a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashed a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances throughout Hitchcock’s story, just as the director did in his own films: Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, James Stewart and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren, who endures cuts and bruises from a fearsome flock of real birds.

From Syria’s tolerant past, with churches and mosques built alongside one another in Old Homs and members of different religions living harmoniously together, THE BATTLE FOR HOME chronicles the recent breakdown of social cohesion in Syria’s cities. With the lack of shared public spaces intensifying divisions within the community, and corrupt officials interfering in town planning for their own gain, these actions are symptomatic of wider abuses of power.

As the crack epidemic swept across inner-city America in the early 1980s, the streets of Baltimore were crime ridden. But basketball could provide the quickest ticket out, an opportunity to earn a college scholarship and perhaps even play in the NBA. Dunbar High School had one of the most successful basketball programs, not only in Baltimore but in the entire country. In the early 1980s, the Dunbar Poets were arguably the best high school team of all time. Four starting players would eventually play in the NBA, an unheard-of success rate. In THE BOYS OF DUNBAR, Alejandro Danois takes us through the 1981-1982 season with the Poets as the team conquered all its opponents.

James Hicks has spent his entire life and career fighting on the front lines of terrorism for the clandestine intelligence organization known as The University. He has learned that enemies can appear and disappear in the blink of an eye, and allegiances shift like the wind. But now, Hicks has finally discovered his true enemy: the criminal organization known as The Vanguard. This shadowy group has operated as a deadly organization comprised of weapons dealers, drug runners and money launderers for decades, but has now decided to add regime change to their catastrophic agenda. But knowing the enemy is one thing; being able to defeat it is another matter entirely. When Hicks uncovers a solid lead on his new adversaries, his world explodes.

Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem only a distant echo. He begins an intense friendship with a Jewish boy, Anton Zweibel, a budding concert pianist. The novel follows Gustav’s family, tracing the roots of his mother’s anti-Semitism and its impact on her son and his beloved friend. Moving backward to the war years and the painful repercussions of an act of conscience, and forward through the lives and careers of the two men --- one who becomes a hotel owner, the other a concert pianist --- THE GUSTAV SONATA explores the passionate love of childhood friendship as it is lost, transformed and regained over a lifetime.

Someone in East Long Beach has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the LAPD can't or won't touch. They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. He charges his clients whatever they can afford, which might be a set of tires or a homemade casserole. To get by, he's forced to take on clients who can pay. This time, it's a rap mogul whose life is in danger. As Isaiah investigates, he encounters a vengeful ex-wife, a crew of notorious cutthroats, a monstrous attack dog, and a hit man who even other hit men say is a lunatic.

MOONGLOW unfolds as the deathbed confession of a man the narrator refers to only as “my grandfather.” It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and marriage and desire, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact --- and the creative power --- of keeping secrets and telling lies. It is a portrait of the difficult but passionate love between the narrator’s grandfather and his grandmother, an enigmatic woman broken by her experience growing up in war-torn France.

In 1958, an unheralded 23-year-old piano prodigy from Texas named Van Cliburn traveled to Moscow to compete in the First International Tchaikovsky Competition. The Soviets had no intention of bestowing their coveted prize on an unknown American; a Russian pianist had already been chosen to win. Yet when the gangly Texan with the shy grin took the stage and began to play, he instantly captivated an entire nation. Adored by millions in the USSR, Cliburn returned to a thunderous hero’s welcome in the US and became, for a time, an ambassador of hope for two dangerously hostile superpowers.

Hamas has taken power in Palestine, and the Israeli government is rounding up threats. When Palestinian policewoman Rania Bakara finds herself thrown in prison, though she has never been part of Hamas, her friend Chloe flies in from San Francisco to get her out. Chloe begs an Israeli policeman named Benny for help --- and Benny offers Rania a way out: investigate the death of a young man in a village near her own. The young man’s neighbors believe the Israeli army killed him; Benny believes his death might not have been so honorable. Chloe's investigation draws her into a Palestinian gay scene she never knew existed, forcing her to question her beliefs about love, justice and cultural identity.

Victorian adventuress and butterfly hunter Veronica Speedwell receives an invitation to visit the Curiosity Club, a ladies-only establishment for daring and intrepid women. There she meets the mysterious Lady Sundridge, who begs her to take on an impossible task --- saving society art patron Miles Ramsforth from execution. Accused of the brutal murder of his artist mistress Artemisia, Ramsforth will face the hangman’s noose in a week’s time if Veronica cannot find the real killer. But Lady Sundridge is not all that she seems, and unmasking her true identity is only the first of the many secrets Veronica must uncover.

Javier Mallarino is a living legend. He is his country's most influential political cartoonist, the consciousness of a nation. A man capable of repealing laws, overturning judges' decisions, destroying politicians' careers with his art. His weapons are pen and ink. Those in power fear him and pay him homage. At 65, after four decades of a brilliant career, he's at the height of his powers. But this all changes when he's paid an unexpected visit from a young woman who upends his sense of personal history and forces him to reevaluate his life and work, questioning his position in the world.

When Marcia, a driven, successful editor in New York with a loving husband, finds she can’t conceive a child, it rips the heart out of her seemingly perfect life. Her desire to be a mother has become her obsession, and after trying and failing to become pregnant by every known method, she focuses all of her energy on her one remaining option: surrogacy. Her husband resists and tries to convince her that they can be happy without a child. But faced with her unyielding determination, he relents and reluctantly goes along with the idea. Everything looks good…until an unexpected tragedy occurs that changes their plans, their marriage and their lives forever.

Casey Carter was convicted of murdering her fiancé, famed philanthropist Hunter Raleigh III, 15 years ago. And Casey claims she’s innocent. Although she was charged and served out her sentence in prison, she is still living “under suspicion.” Her story attracts the attention of Laurie Moran and the “Under Suspicion” news team. It’s Casey’s last chance to finally clear her name, and Laurie pledges to exonerate her. With Alex Buckley taking a break from the show, “Under Suspicion” introduces a new on-air host named Ryan Nichols, who has no problems with steering --- and stealing --- the show, and even tries to stop Laurie from taking on Casey’s case because he’s so certain she’s guilty.

"Why do we write?" With this question, Joyce Carol Oates begins an imaginative exploration of the writing life, and all its attendant anxieties, joys and futilities, in this collection of seminal essays and criticism. Leading her quest is a desire to understand the source of the writer’s inspiration. Do subjects haunt those that might bring them back to life until the writer submits? Or does something "happen" to us, a sudden ignition of a burning flame? Can the appearance of a muse-like Other bring about a writer’s best work? In SOUL AT THE WHITE HEAT, Oates deploys her keenest critical faculties, conjuring contemporary and past voices whose work she dissects for clues to these elusive questions.

Two and a half decades into a devastating civil war, Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority is pushed inexorably towards the coast by the advancing army. Amongst the evacuees is Dinesh, whose world has contracted to a makeshift camp where time is measured by the shells that fall around him like clockwork. Alienated from family, home, language and body, he exists in a state of mute acceptance until he is approached one morning by an old man who makes an unexpected proposal: that Dinesh marry his daughter, Ganga. Dinesh and Ganga try to come to terms with everything that has happened, hesitantly attempting to awaken to themselves and to one another before the war closes over them once more.

TRUE BELIEVER reveals the life of Noel Field, an American who betrayed his country and crushed his family. Field, once a well-meaning and privileged American, spied for Stalin during the 1930s and '40s. Then a pawn in Stalin’s sinister master strategy, Field was kidnapped and tortured by the KGB and forced to testify against his own Communist comrades. How does an Ivy League-educated, US State Department employee, deeply rooted in American culture and history, become a hardcore Stalinist? Communism promised the righting of social and political wrongs, and many in Field’s generation were seduced by its siren song. Few, however, went as far as he did in betraying their own country.

On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Lucy Stanhope, the granddaughter of an earl, is living a life of pampered luxury in Singapore until one reckless act will change her life forever. Exiled to England to stay with an aunt she barely remembers, Lucy never dreamed that she would be one of the last people to escape Singapore before war engulfs the entire island. Then she meets Bill, a young evacuee sent to the country to escape the Blitz, and in a moment of weakness, Lucy agrees to help him find his mother in London. The unlikely runaways take off on a seemingly simple journey across the country, but her world becomes even more complicated when she is reunited with an invalided soldier she knew in Singapore.