Summer page-turners
Act of Passion
A Novel
Georges Simenon
New York Review Books: $14.95 paper
Though successful at his work and family life, a doctor grows dissatisfied and restless and thinks a casual affair is the perfect answer—until the consequences are far deadlier than he ever expected. (July)
The Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown
A Novel
Paul Malmont
Simon & Schuster: $26
The time is during World War II, and science fiction writer Robert Heinlein and his “Kamikaze Group” have been enlisted to fight the Nazis. (July)
Bad Intentions
An Inspector Sejer Mystery
Karin Fossum
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: $24
Why are the corpses of young men being found in lakes? Inspector Konrad Sejer looks for the answer, and the murderer, in this latest in Fossum’s popular series. (August)
Before I Go to Sleep
A Novel
S.J. Watson
Harper: $25.99
A chilling debut thriller about Christine Lucas, a woman whose mind is erased of everything about her — her past, the people she loves, her name — each time she goes to sleep. (June)
Betrayal of Trust
A Novel
J.A. Jance
William Morrow: $25.99
Jance returns with her latest thriller featuring J.P. Beaumont, a retired Seattle police officer. (July)
The Big Book of Adventure Stories
Edited and with an introduction by Otto Penzler
Vintage: $25 paper
A mystery editor par excellence provides a summer’s worth — and then some — of adventures, featuring Zorro, the Cisco Kid, King Kong, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and much more. (May)
Bloodmoney
A Novel of Espionage
David Ignatius
W.W. Norton: $25.95
The author of “Body of Lies” returns with the story of a young CIA officer charged with finding out who’s killing members of an intelligence unit that is trying to broker peace with America’s enemies. (June)
Clive Barker
The Painter, the Creature, and the Father of Lies
Edited by Phil and Sarah Stokes
Earthling: $35
A collection of the horror master’s nonfiction, including his reflections on creativity, other artists and the roots of fantasy found in our inner desires to answer the “siren song, inviting us to take a ghost ride into nightmare.” (July)
The Cut
A Novel
George Pelecanos
Little, Brown: $25.99
Spero Lucas has a knack for recovering stolen property since his return to the U.S. after serving in Iraq — but when a crime boss hires him, Spero plunges into an amoral world that puts everything he holds dear at stake. (August)
Damage Control
A Novel
Denise Hamilton
Scribner: $26
When her best friend is murdered, high-powered PR exec Maggie Silver handles the spin for her friend’s father, a powerful Southern California politician, and gets sucked into family secrets and old tragedies as she manages the scandal. (August)
A Dance With Dragons
A Novel
George R.R. Martin
Bantam: $35
The fate of the Seven Kingdoms again hangs in the balance in this highly-anticipated novel from the author of “Game of Thrones.” (July)
A Drop of the Hard Stuff
Lawrence Block
Little, Brown: $25.99
Out of the NYPD, Matthew Scudder is trying to rebuild his life when the murder of a childhood friend confronts him with a question: Was his friend killed for what he did or for something he witnessed? (May)
Embassytown
A Novel
China Miéville
Del Rey: $26
The harmonious society between humans and an enigmatic race of aliens on a distant planet is upset by political machinations in this latest tale by a first-rate builder of imaginary worlds. (May)
Fallen
A Novel
Karin Slaughter
Delacorte: $26
When police detective Faith Mitchell finds a break-in at her mother’s house and blood on the door, she charges in with gun blazing and is suddenly plunged into a world where she becomes a witness … and a suspect. (June)
Fatale
A Novel
J.P. Manchette
New York Review Books: $12.95 paper
A gorgeous killer travels through a sleepy town in this novel that takes the modern detective story and applies a hearty dose of satire. (available now)
The Gentlemen’s Hour
A Novel
Don Winslow
Simon & Schuster: $25
Surfer-private eye Boone Daniels angers his fellow wave-catchers when he decides to help someone accused of killing a legendary surfer. (August)
The Hypnotist
A Novel
Lars Kepler
Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $27
Detective Inspector Joona Linna uses hypnotism on the sole eyewitness to a savage triple homicide — the traumatized boy who watched his family murdered before his eyes. (July)
Hit List
An Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Novel
Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley: $27.95
Anita Blake is called in to investigate a serial murderer in the Pacific Northwest, knowing the real culprits are a shadowy vampire group known as the Harlequin. (June)
The Jefferson Key
A Novel
Steve Berry
Ballantine: $26
An assassination attempt on the U.S. president’s life leads Justice Department operative Cotton Malone into an encounter with a conspiracy dating to the days of the Founding Fathers. (May)
The Killer Is Dying
A Novel
James Sallis
Walker & Co.: $23
Lives of a killer, a burned-out detective and a young child intersect beneath the scorching sun of Phoenix. (August)
Kill Me if You Can
A Novel
James Patterson and Marshall Karp
Little, Brown: $27.99
The best kind of surprise — a duffel bag full of diamonds — falls into a hapless student’s life, and he begins to fantasize about a new life … until he discovers that one of the world’s greatest assassins wants the diamonds back. (August)
The Kingdom
A Fargo Adventure
Clive Cussler with Grant Blackwood
G. P. Putnam’s Sons: $27.95
Husband-and-wife treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are on a missing-persons search that takes them into unexpected corners of the Far East. (June)
Kiss Her Goodbye
The New Mike Hammer Novel
Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Otto Penzler: $25
An aging Mike Hammer returns to his New York City and finds it changed in this unfinished manuscript completed by his friend and colleague Collins, author of the graphic novel “Road to Perdition.” (May)
The Magician King
A Novel
Lev Grossman
Viking: $26.95
The adventures continue for Quentin and his friends in the mystical land of Fillory, begun in the previous novel, “The Magicians.” (August)
The Map of Time
A Novel
Félix J. Palma
Simon & Schuster/Atria: $26
A Victorian-era romp involves H.G. Wells investigating alleged incidents of time travel and the dire consequences they could have upon history. (June)
The Monkey’s Wedding
And Other Stories
Joan Aiken
Small Beer Press: $24
Stories of the gothic and the uncanny, including several published under the pseudonym Nicholas Dee and several never before published. (Now available)
The Most Dangerous Thing
A Novel
Laura Lippman
William Morrow: $25.99
The author of thrillers including “I’d Know You Anywhere” returns with her 16th novel. (August)
Monument to Murder
A Capital Crimes Novel
Margaret Truman
Forge: $24.99
A private eye takes on a 20-year-old murder case, thinking he’s got nothing to lose. He’s wrong. (July).
Portrait of a Spy
Daniel Silva
Harper: $26.99
The CIA enlists anti-terrorist expert Gabriel Allon in tracking down a dangerous American-born cleric with deadly plans. (July)
Prophecy
An Historical Thriller
S.J. Parris
Doubleday: $26.95
Monk and philosopher Giordano Bruno’s exploits in Elizabethan England continue — he was first introduced in the novel “Heresy” — as he uncovers plans for a foreign invasion that threatens the queen’s reign. (May)
The Ridge
A Novel
Michael Koryta
Little, Brown: $24.99
The owner of a curiosity — a land-locked lighthouse in rural Kentucky — dies, leaving a warning that the light must be kept on to keep something away. Three people are drawn into finding out what this “something” is. (June)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Dominion
A New Jason Bourne Novel
Eric Van Lustbader
Grand Central: $27.99
Jason Bourne’s the ultimate lone gun, but this time — in hunting terrorists that want to destroy America’s strategic natural resources — he enlists the help of Boris Karpov, an old friend and the head of a Russian spy agency. (July)
Spycatcher
A Novel
Matthew Dunn
William Morrow: $25.99
The author draws on his experience as a British field agent for his debut thriller about counterterrorism and a joint mission between the CIA and MI6 to catch a ruthless Iranian spy. (August)
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities
Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
Harper Voyager: $22.99
A collection of fantastic tales by today’s best fantasy writers—including Holly Black, Cherie Priest and Jeffrey Ford—connected with the strange curios found in the house of an enignmatic doctor after his death. (July)
Tigerlily’s Orchids
A Novel
Ruth Rendell
Scribner: $26
An ordinary house-warming party and a not-so-ordinary murder throw the residents of a group of private London flats into chaos. (June)
Titus Awakes
A Novel
Maeve Gilmore, based on a fragment by Mervyn Peake
Overlook Press: $25.95
Gilmore finishes her husband’s lush, fantastical “Gormenghast” series, drawing on the pages Peake left behind with his death in 1968. (July)
Triple Crossing
A Novel
Sebastian Rotella
Mulholland Books: $24.99
A rookie border patrol agent working the Line in San Diego is recruited to infiltrate a Mexican crime family and soon finds everything — his career, romance, his life — in grave peril. (August)
The Warsaw Anagrams
A Novel
Richard Zimler
Overlook: $25.95
An elderly Jewish psychiatrist investigates his grandnephew’s murder in the Warsaw ghetto amid the horrors of the Holocaust. (July)
NEW
Damage Control
A Novel
Denise Hamilton
Scribner: $26.00
Hamilton returns with a novel of teenage friendship and adult betrayal with the backdrop of murder and scandal.
More to Read
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