March 20, 2012

March 20th

THE BLIND SPY by Alex Dryden
Superspy Anna Resnikov is back in the rifle sights of her former masters as she races to expose Russia’s plot to destabilize the Ukraine and retake their former territory.
Ecco * 9780062088086

BORN TO DARKNESS by Suzanne Brockmann
Former Navy SEAL Shane Laughlin finds work as a test subject at the Obermeyer Institute, a little-known and believed-to-be-fringe scientific research facility. When he enters the compound, he is plunged into a strange world where certain individuals possess the unique ability to access untapped regions of the brain with extraordinary results.
Ballantine Books * 9780345521279

DUST TO DUST: A Memoir by Benjamin Busch
Benjamin Busch, a decorated U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer, weaves together a vivid record of a pastoral childhood in rural New York; Marine training in North Carolina, Ukraine and California; and deployment during the worst of the war in Iraq, as seen firsthand.
Ecco * 9780062014849

FALL FROM GRACE by Richard North Patterson
Using his training as a CIA operative, Ben Blaine skillfully seeks to find the truth surrounding his father’s violent death --- even if it means exposing one of his own family members as the killer and unearthing hidden skeletons that were never meant to be found.
Scribner * 9781451617054

FORCE OF NATURE: A Joe Pickett Novel by C. J. Box
In 1995, Nate Romanowski was in a secret Special Forces unit abroad when a colleague did something terrible. Now high up in the government, the man is determined to eliminate anyone who knows about it, and Nate knows exactly how he'll do it --- by striking at Nate's friends to draw him out.
Putnam Adult * 9780399158261

THE GOOD FATHER by Noah Hawley
Dr. Paul Allen's specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms, patients other doctors have given up on. In the harrowing opening scene of this novel, Dr. Allen is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally, and his son Daniel is caught on video as the assassin.
Doubleday * 9780385535533

GOSSIP by Beth Gutcheon
GOSSIP is a tale of intimacy and betrayal, trust and fidelity, friendship, competition and motherhood that explores the myriad ways we use and abuse "information" about others --- be it true, false, or imagined --- to sustain, and occasionally destroy, one another.
William Morrow * 9780061931420

THE MIGHT HAVE BEEN by Joseph M. Schuster
After a decade playing in the minor leagues, Edward Everett Yates sustains a devastating knee injury that destroys his professional career. Thirty years later, Edward is still grappling with regret over the life he almost had, when he encounters two players who show him that his greatest contribution may come in the last place he ever expected.
Ballantine Books * 9780345530264

MUDWOMAN by Joyce Carol Oates
MUDWOMAN explores the high price of success in the life of one woman --- the first female president of a lauded Ivy League institution --- and her hold upon her self-identity in the face of personal and professional demons.
Ecco * 9780062095626

A PARTIAL HISTORY OF LOST CAUSES by Jennifer duBois
In Jennifer duBois’s mesmerizing and exquisitely rendered debut novel, a long-lost letter links two disparate characters, each searching for meaning against seemingly insurmountable odds. Spanning two continents and the dramatic sweep of history, A PARTIAL HISTORY OF LOST CAUSES reveals the stubbornness and splendor of the human will even in the most trying times.
The Dial Press * 9781400069774

PHANTOM: An Alex Hawke Novel by Ted Bell
Counterspy Alex Hawke must catch a villainous megalomaniac --- a man obsessed with horrifying experiments in cyberwarfare --- in this mesmerizing new espionage thriller in Ted Bell's New York Times bestselling series.
William Morrow * 9780061859304

SO PRETTY IT HURTS: A Bailey Weggins Mystery by Kate White
True-crime journalist and sassy amateur sleuth Bailey Weggins has scarcely begun her hard-earned weekend getaway when something comes up: a dead body, belonging to one of the world’s most glamorous supermodels. Now Bailey is trapped at an upstate New York home amidst the glitterati --- and any one of them could be a murderer.
Harper * 9780061576607

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: A Journal of My Son's First Son by Anne Lamott
Stunned to learn that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at 19, Anne Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax's life. Lamott and Sam struggle to balance their changing roles with the demands of college and work, as they both forge new relationships with Jax's mother.
Riverhead Hardcover * 9781594488412

STAY CLOSE by Harlan Coben
Three people living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past doesn't recede. Even as the terrible consequences of long-ago events crash together in the present and threaten to ruin lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all.
Dutton Adult * 9780525952275

THAT'S HOW I ROLL by Andrew Vachss
Esau Till’s race is almost run. After pleading guilty to a series of homicides, he sits on death row, awaiting lethal injection. And writing his life story. But his memoir is no case study in tragedy --- it’s his one last chance to protect his brother Tory after he’s gone.
Pantheon * 9780307379948

THE THIEF by Fuminori Nakamura
The Thief has no family, no friends, no connections.... But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him when Ishikawa, his first partner, reappears in his life and offers him a job. Only the day after the job does he learn that the old man he tied up was a prominent politician, and that he was brutally killed after the robbery.
Soho Crime * 9781616950217

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN WINTER: A Memoir in Blindness by Candia McWilliam
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN WINTER is the story of a celebrated writer’s sudden descent into blindness, and of the redemptive journey into the past that her loss of sight sets in motion.
Harper * 9780062094506

March 20th

CLARA AND MR. TIFFANY by Susan Vreeland
Tiffany glass --- those gorgeously colored turn-of-the-century lamps and other collectibles --- was, it turns out, often designed and produced by a band of unsung female artisans. Their leader, Clara Driscoll, emerges from obscurity in another art-themed historical novel from the author of GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE and THE PASSION OF ARTEMISIA.
Random House Trade Paperbacks * 9780812980189

THE LITTLE COFFEE SHOP OF KABUL by Deborah Rodriguez
After hard luck and heartbreak, Sunny finally finds a place to call home --- in the middle of an Afghanistan war zone. There, the 38-year-old serves up her American hospitality to the expats who patronize her coffee shop, including a British journalist, a “danger pay” consultant, and a wealthy and well-connected woman.
Ballantine Books * 9780345514769

March 26th

GUILTY WIVES by James Patterson and David Ellis
Only minutes after Abbie Elliot and her three best friends step off of a private helicopter, they enter the most luxurious, sumptuous and sensually pampering hotel they have ever been to. Little did any of them know that they all would be arrested and accused of the foulest crime imaginable. Now the vacation of a lifetime becomes the fight of a lifetime --- for survival.
Little, Brown & Company * 9780316097567

THE SUGAR FROSTED NUTSACK by Mark Leyner
High above the bustling streets of Dubai, in the world's tallest and most luxurious skyscraper, reside the gods and goddesses of the modern world, who have wreaked mischief and havoc on mankind. Ike Karton, an unemployed butcher from New Jersey, is their current obsession.
Little, Brown and Company * 9780316608459


March 27th

BETRAYAL by Danielle Steel
In Danielle Steel’s thrilling new novel, a renowned film director confronts an act of unimaginable treachery --- and the first devastating blow will not be the last.
Delacorte Press * 9780385343190

BLOOD IN THE WATER: A Gregor Demarkian Novel by Jane Haddam
Martha Heydrich is the stay-at-home wife of a very rich husband, and is rumored to be having an affair with a local teenager. One morning she seemingly vanishes from her house, and later that night her husband Arthur returns home to find the pool house ablaze.
Minotaur Books * 9780312644345

DOLLED UP FOR MURDER: A Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery by Jane K. Cleland
Josie Prescott shows a doll collection to Alice Michaels of the local investment community. Moments later, Josie watches in horror as Alice is shot and killed. Josie discovers that the dolls hold secrets that will uncover the truth behind Alice’s murder.
Minotaur Books * 9781250001849

EDGE OF DARK WATER by Joe R. Lansdale
May Lynn, once a pretty girl who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star, is now dead. Sue Ellen, her strong-willed teenage friend, sets out to dig up May Lynn's body, burn it to ash, and take those ashes to Hollywood to spread around. But Sue Ellen has some stolen money that her enemies will do anything to get back.
Mulholland Books * 9780316188432

ELEGY FOR EDDIE: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie Dobbs takes on her most personal case yet: a twisting investigation into the brutal killing of a street peddler that will take her from the working-class neighborhoods of her childhood into London’s highest circles of power.
Harper * 9780062049575

THE LAND OF DECORATION by Grace McCleen
Persecuted at school for her beliefs and struggling with her distant, devout father at home, 10-year-old Judith McPherson finds solace and connection in a model in miniature of the Promised Land that she has constructed in her room from collected discarded scraps --- the Land of Decoration.
Henry Holt and Company * 9780805094947

THE MEMORY OF BLOOD: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery by Christopher Fowler
For the crew of the New Strand Theatre, the play The Two Murderers seems less performance than prophecy when a cast party ends in the shocking death of the theater owner’s son. The crime scene is most unusual, even for Bryant and May. In a locked bedroom without any trace of fingerprints or blood, the only sign of disturbance is a gruesome life-size puppet of Mr. Punch laying on the floor.
Bantam * 9780345528636

THE NEW REPUBLIC by Lionel Shriver
Lionel Shriver's new novel teases out the intimate relationship between terrorism and cults of personality, explores what makes certain people so magnetic, and reveals the deep frustrations of feeling overshadowed by a life-of-the-party who may not even be present.
Harper * 9780062103321

NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT by Nadine Gordimer
Steve and Jabulile is an interracial couple living in a newly, tentatively, free South Africa. There is nothing so extraordinary about their lives, and yet, in telling their story and the stories of their friends and families, Nadine Gordimer manages to capture the tortured, fragmented essence of a nation struggling to define itself post-apartheid.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux * 9780374222642

THREE A.M. by Steven John
THREE A.M., a startling debut from Steven John, is a harrowing speculative thriller about what happens when one man asks too many questions about the devastated world around him and finds the horror beneath the haze.
Tor Books * 9780765331168

THE UNRULY PASSIONS OF EUGENIE R. by Carole DeSanti
Eugénie R., born in France’s foie gras country, follows the man she loves to Paris, but soon finds herself marooned, pregnant and penniless. She gives birth to a daughter she is forced to abandon and spends the next 10 years fighting to get her back.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt * 9780547553092


March 28th

WHEN YOU ARE DOWN TO NOTHING, GOD IS UP TO SOMETHING: Discovering Divine Purpose and Provision When Life Hurts by Robert A. Schuller
Based on personal experience from his own dark periods of life, Robert A. Schuller shares with readers what he learned God was up to --- in his relationships, health, finances and emotional life --- explaining finally how he found that, in even the most difficult moments, there is reason to trust in God.
FaithWords * 9780446580991


March 29th

A SURREY STATE OF AFFAIRS by Ceri Radford
Constance Harding's comfortable corner of Surrey is her own little piece of heaven. Naturally, things turn disastrous rather quickly. And she's about to learn that her perfect home conceals a scandal that would make the vicar blush.
Pamela Dorman Books * 9780670023424

WHEREVER I WIND UP: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball by R.A. Dickey
An English Lit major at the University of Tennessee, Major League pitcher R.A. Dickey is as articulate and thoughtful as any professional athlete in any sport --- and proves it page after page, as he provides fresh and honest insight into baseball and a career unlike any other.
Blue Rider Press * 9780399158155