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.