Genre Watch: New Mysteries and Thrillers for Kindle Readers

Spend less time searching for new genre fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. Recent and choice releases in mystery and suspense fiction include:

Betrayal of Trust, by J. A. Jance. Harper Collins, 2011. Print Length: 352 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (14 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.92. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"At first glance, the video appears to be showing a childish game: a teenage girl with dark wavy hair smiles for the camera, a blue scarf tied around her neck. All of a sudden things turn murderous, and the girl ends up dead. It’s as bad as a snuff film can get, and what’s worse, the clip has been discovered on a phone that belongs to the grandson of Washington State’s governor. However, the boy, who has a troubled background, swears that he’s never seen the victim before. Fortunately, the governor is able to turn to an old friend, J. P. Beaumont, for help. The Seattle private investigator has witnessed many horrific acts over the years, but this one ranks near the top. Even more shocking is that the crime’s multiple perpetrators could be minors..." - Publisher.

Split Second: An FBI Thiriller, by Catherine Coulter. Putnam, 2011. Print Length: 432 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (15 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $15.09. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"A serial killer is on the loose, and it's up to FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock to bring him down. They soon discover that the killer has blood ties to the infamous and now long-dead monster Ted Bundy. Savich and Sherlock are joined by agents Lucy Carlyle and Cooper McKnight, and the chase is on. At the same time, Agent Carlyle learns from her dying father that her grandfather didn't simply walk away from his family twenty-two years ago: he was, in fact, murdered by his wife, Lucy's grandmother. Determined to find the truth, Lucy moves into her grandmother's Chevy Chase mansion. As the hunt for the serial killer escalates, Savich realizes he's become the killer's focus, and perhaps the next victim..." - Amazon.

Misery Bay: An Alex McKnight Novel, by Steve Hamilton. Minotaur Books, 2011. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (43 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $15.05. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"On a frozen January night, a young man loops one end of a long rope over the branch of a tree. The other end he ties around his neck. A snowmobiler will find him thirty-six hours later, his lifeless eyes staring out at the endless cold water of Lake Superior. It happens in a lonely corner of the Upper Peninsula, in a place they call Misery Bay. Alex McKnight does not know this young man, and he won’t even hear about the suicide until another cold night, two months later and 250 miles away, when the door to the Glasgow Inn opens and the last person Alex would ever expect to see comes walking in to ask for his help..." - Amazon.com Review.

Full Black, by Brad Thor. Atria Books, 2011. Print Length: 400 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.04. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"Born in the shadows and kept from heads of state, there are some missions so deadly, so sensitive, that they simply don’t exist. When one such mission goes horribly wrong, a wave of dramatic terrorist attacks is set in motion. Their goal: the complete and total collapse of the United States. With the CIA’s intelligence abilities hobbled, former Navy SEAL Team 6 member turned covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath launches an audacious plan to infiltrate the terrorists’ network and prevent one of the biggest threats the United States has ever faced. As the plots rocket to their pulse-pounding conclusion and the identities of the perpetrators are laid stunningly bare, Harvath will be left with only one means to save America. Unable to trust anyone, he will be forced to go Full Black." - Amazon.

Iron House, by John Hart. Thomas Dunne Books, 2011. Print Length: 432 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (66 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover$14.03. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Michael is an assassin for the mob; he's expectedly ferocious and cunning yet equally loyal, sensitive, and even loving - the unlikeliest of heroes. Yet it is Michael at the center of this complex, action-packed thriller that moves between the back mountains of North Carolina and its rolling estates and the mean streets of New York City. The story is built around children living a Lord of the Flies existence, schizophrenia, familial relationships, dirty politics, and revenge. Hart has the skill to create multifaceted characters and weave them into multiple plotlines, creating a spellbinding story that is impossible to put down or to forget..." Stacy Alesi forLibrary Journal.

Killed at the Whim of a Hat, by Colin Cotterill. Minotaur Books, 2011. Print Length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (29 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $16.32. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Jimm Juree was a crime reporter for the Chiang Mai Daily Mail with a somewhat eccentric family - a mother who might be drifting mentally; a grandfather - a retired cop - who rarely talks; a younger brother obsessed with body-building, and a transgendered, former beauty pageant queen, former older brother. When Jimm is forced to follow her family to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she’s convinced her career - maybe her life - is over. So when a van containing the skeletal remains of two hippies, one of them wearing a hat, is inexplicably unearthed in a local farmer’s field, Jimm is thrilled. Shortly thereafter an abbot at a local Buddhist temple is viciously murdered, with the temple’s monk and nun the only suspects. Suddenly Jimm’s new life becomes somewhat more promising - and a lot more deadly..." - Amazon.

Mai Tai One On, by Jil Marie Landis. Bell Bridge Books, 2011. Print Length: 228 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (14 reviews). Kindle edition $6.59; Paperback $13.95. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Six months ago, if anyone would have told Em Johnson she'd end up divorced, broke, and running the dilapidated Tiki Goddess Bar on the magical North Shore of Kauai she would have told them to shove a swizzle stick up their okole. As if all that isn't bad enough, when an obnoxious neighbor with a grudge is found dead in the Goddess luau pit, suspicion falls on Em and the rest of the Goddess staff. With the help of a quirky dance troupe of over-the-hill Hula Maidens, Em and the cast of characters must ban together to find the killer and solve the mystery before the next pupu party..." - Amazon.

One Dog Night, by David Rosenfelt. Minotaur Books, 2011. Print Length: 400 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $16.49. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Paterson, N.J.'s most reluctant defense attorney agrees to defend recovering drug addict Noah Galloway, who's been arrested for setting a fire six years earlier that killed 26 people. Andy and Noah have two important connections: Noah tried to break into Andy's house about a year before the arson incident, and Noah was the original owner of Tara, Andy's beloved golden retriever. Though Noah remembers nothing about the fire, he tells Andy he's guilty. With Noah resigned to a life behind bars without parole, Andy does his usual sterling - and amusing - performance in the courtroom to stall for time. The colorful supporting cast provides some unusual assists: incurable pessimist Hike Lynch starts to look on the bright side; semiliterate Willie Miller decides to write a book; accountant and computer expert Sam Willis becomes a gun-packing field agent for Andy...." - Publishers Weekly.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.

Good Reads: New Nonfiction for the Kindle

What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative. - Tracy Kidder.

Nonfiction encompasses a wealth of reading possibilities - history, essays, memoirs, scientific research, travel guides, cookbooks - essentially everything that is based on fact, real events and real people. Recent nonfiction titles for the Kindle that you might have missed:

Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories from Small Towns, by Judy Muller. University of Nebraska, 2011. Print Length: 264 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $16.47. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"At a time when mainstream news media are hemorrhaging and doomsayers are predicting the death of journalism, take heart: the First Amendment is alive and well in small towns across America. In Emus Loose in Egnar, award-winning journalist Judy Muller takes the reader on a grassroots tour of rural American newspapers, from an Indian reservation in Montana to the Alaska tundra to Martha’s Vineyard, and discovers that many weeklies are not just surviving, but thriving. In these small towns, stories can range from club news to Klan news, from broken treaties to broken hearts, from banned books to escaped emus; they document the births, deaths, crimes, sports, and local shenanigans that might seem to matter only to those who live there. And yet, as this book shows us, these 'little' stories create a mosaic of American life that tells us a great deal about who we are..." - Publisher.

Precious Objects: A Story of Diamonds, Family and a Way of Life, by Alicia Oltuski. Scribner, 2011. Print Length: 368 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $10.99; Hardcover $15.82. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In the middle of New York City lies a neighborhood where all secrets are valuable, all assets are liquid, and all deals are sealed with a blessing rather than a contract. Welcome to the diamond district. Ninety percent of all diamonds that enter America pass through these few blocks, but the inner workings of this mysterious world are known only to the people who inhabit it. In Precious Objects, twenty-six-year-old journalist Alicia Oltuski, the daughter and granddaughter of diamond dealers, seamlessly blends family narrative with literary reportage to reveal the fascinating secrets of the diamond industry and its madcap characters: an Elvis-impersonating dealer, a duo of diamond-detective brothers, and her own eccentric father..." - Amazon.

Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate, by Juan Williams. Crown, 2011. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.10. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Prize-winning Washington journalist Juan Williams was unceremoniously dismissed by NPR for speaking his mind and saying what many Americans feel - that he gets nervous when boarding airplanes with passengers dressed in Muslim garb. In Muzzled, Williams uses his very public firing as a launching pad to discuss the countless ways in which honest debate in America - from the halls of Congress and the health care town halls to the talk shows and print media - is stifled. In today’s partisan world, where media provocateurs rule the airwaves and political correctness dictates what can and cannot be said with impunity, Williams shows how the honest exchange of ideas and the search for solutions and reasonable compromise is deliberately muzzled. Only those toeing the party’s line - the screaming voices of the extremist - get airtime and dominate the discussion in politics and the media. Each side, liberal and conservative, preaches to a choir that revels in expressions of anger, ideology, conspiracies, and demonized opponents. The result is an absence of truth-telling and honest debate about the facts...A fierce, fresh look at the critical importance of an open airing of controversial issues..." - from the hardcover edition.

Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty , by Mustafa Akyol. W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. Print Length: 352 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $14.27; Hardcover $16.86. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Turkish journalist Akyol clarifies the complexities and contradictions of Islam in this indispensable book. He demonstrates how the harsh tribal cultures of the Arabian desert in the 7th century shaped Islam for centuries since their traditions evolved into unquestioned rules that were often at odds with the Qur'an. The Qur'an stresses family, rights for women, protection of the weak, the use of reason, and the freedom to choose - teachings similar to Jewish and Christian writings of the time. After Muhammad's death, opposing forces (adhering to tradition or the employment of reason as guides for life) clashed bitterly for centuries, their tribal harshness creating a political Islam. The resulting Islamic political systems are the products of men attempting to recreate the caliphate of 7th century Arabia, a goal that Akyol argues is impractical. This even-handed scholarly work, which also helps explain the rise of the Taliban and other extremists, makes Islam accessible to Western readers." - Publishers Weekly.

Words to Eat By: Five Foods and the Culinary History of the English Language, by Ina Lipkowitz. St. Martin's Press, 2011. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.79. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"You may be what you eat, but you’re also what you speak, and English food words tell a remarkable story about the evolution of our language and culinary history, revealing a vital collision of cultures alive and well from the time Caesar first arrived on British shores to the present day. Words to Eat By explores the remarkable stories behind five of our most basic food words, words which reveal fascinating aspects of the evolution of the English language and our powerful associations with certain foods. Using sources that vary from Roman histories and early translations of the Bible to Julia Child’s recipes and Frank Bruni’s restaurant reviews, Ina Lipkowitz shows how saturated with French and Italian names the English culinary vocabulary is, 'from a la carte to zabaglione.' But the words for our most basic foodstuffs - bread, meat, milk, leek, and apple - are still rooted in Old English and Words to Eat By reveals how exceptional these words and our associations with the foods are." - Amazon.

Pitching in the Promised Land: A Story of the First and Only Season in the Israel Baseball League, by Aaron Pribble. University of Nebraska Press, 2011. Print Length: 280 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $14.97; Hardcover $18.21. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It was the first (and last) season of professional baseball in Israel. Aaron Pribble, twenty-seven, had been out of Minor League Baseball for three years while he pursued a career in education when, at his coach’s suggestion, he tried out for the newly formed Israel Baseball League (IBL). Of Jewish descent (not a requirement, but definitely a plus) and former pro, Pribble was the ideal candidate for the upstart league. In many ways the league resembled the ultimate baseball fantasy camp with its unforgettable cast of characters: the DJ/street artist third baseman from the Bronx, the wildman catcher from Australia, the journeymen Dominicans who were much older than they claimed to be, and, of course, seventy-one-year-old Sandy Koufax, drafted in a symbolic gesture as the last player. After falling in love with a beautiful Yemenite Jew, enduring an alleged terrorist attack on opening day, witnessing a career-ending brain injury caused by improper field equipment, participating in a strike, and venturing into the West Bank despite being strongly advised against it, Pribble must decide whether to forgo a teaching career in order to become the first player from the IBL to sign a pro contract in the United States. His is a story of coming of age spiritually and athletically in one short season in the throes of romance, Middle Eastern politics, and the dreams of America’s pastime far, far afield from home." - Amazon.

Knitting Yarns and Spinning Tales: A Knitter's Stash of Wit and Wisdom, edited by Kari Cornell. Voyageur Press, 2005. Kindle edition 2011. Print Length: 224 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $9.89; Hardcover $7.18. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...brings to life the unique and universal experiences of knitters from a variety of backgrounds. This exceptional collection combines lighthearted essays with more philosophical pieces from authors and experts such as Meg Swansen, Perri Klass, Lily Chin, Teva Durham, Lela Nargi, Susan Gordon Lydon, Suzyn Jackson, Amy Singer, Greta Cunningham, Laura Billings, Kay Dorn, Betty Christiansen, and Jennifer Hansen, who put down their needles long enough to share their thoughts and musings about the popular pastime. In these entertaining yarns, the authors provide insight into the warmth and enjoyment of knitting and crocheting. Join one writer as she shares a poignant Sunday afternoon in March shearing sheep with her father; travel to Sant ’Arsenio, Italy, where women gather on their door steps to knit, crochet, embroider, and chat; laugh at one woman’s memories of learning to knit in an uncomfortable classroom chair beside a World War II vet named Max; and smile at the essays that delve into the psyche of the knitter. " - Amazon.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.



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What People Magazine is Reading This Week (July 18th Issue)

For those Kindle readers who, like me, read for entertainment, scanning the book reviews in People magazine is good way to check out new people-related books - celebrity bios, popular novels, absorbing nonfiction - just hitting bookstore shelves. Featured in the July 18th issue of People:

Before I Go To Sleep, by S. J. Watson. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 368 p. THRILLER. People's slant: "You'll stay up late reading..." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (225 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.27. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is a stranger to her, and he's obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis - all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. With the encouragement of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: Don't trust Ben. One of the best debut literary thrillers in recent years, Before I Go to Sleep deserves to be one of the major blockbusters of the summer." - Miriam Landis for Amazon.com Review.

Witches of East End, by Melissa de la Cruz. Hyperion, 2011. Print length: 288 p. NOVEL. People's slant: "...a bubbling cauldron of mystery and romance..." Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (80 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $13.25. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"The three Beauchamp women - Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid - live in North Hampton, out on the tip of Long Island. Their beautiful, mist-shrouded town seems almost stuck in time, and all three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret - they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. For centuries, all three women have been forced to suppress their abilities. But then Freya, who is about to get married to the wealthy and mysterious Bran Gardiner, finds that her increasingly complicated romantic life makes it more difficult than ever to hide her secret...this is a page-turning, deliciously fun, magical summer read fraught with love affairs, witchcraft, and an unforgettable battle between good and evil." - Amazon.

Turn of Mind, by Alice LaPlante. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011. Print length: 320 p. NOVEL. People's slant: Turn of Mind has been described as a mystery, but the police case is only one piece of LaPlante's lyrical mosaic..." Amazon customer rating:4 1/2 stars (47 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $14.96. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"A stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia, Turn of Mind has already received worldwide attention. With unmatched patience and a pulsating intensity, Alice LaPlante brings us deep into a brilliant woman’s deteriorating mind, where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse. As the book opens, Dr. Jennifer White’s best friend, Amanda, who lived down the block, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed from her hand. Dr. White is the prime suspect and she herself doesn’t know whether she did it..." - Amazon.

The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, by Rachel Shteir. The Penguin Press, 2011. Print Length: 272 p. NONFICTION. People's slant: "...intelligent, sometimes startling book..." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $17.07 Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...the first serious study of shoplifting, tracking the fascinating history of this ancient crime. Dismissed by academia and the mainstream media and largely misunderstood, shoplifting has become the territory of moralists, mischievous teenagers, tabloid television, and self-help gurus. But shoplifting incurs remarkable real-life costs for retailers and consumers. The crime tax - the amount every American family loses to shoplifting-related price inflation - is more than $400 a year. Shoplifting cost American retailers $11.7 billion in 2009. The theft of one $5.00 item from Whole Foods can require sales of hundreds of dollars to break even. In The Steal, Shteir guides us through a remarkable tour of all things shoplifting - we visit the Woodbury Commons Outlet Mall, where boosters run rampant, watch the surveillance footage from Winona Ryder's famed shopping trip, and learn the history of anti-theft technology. A groundbreaking study..." - Amazon.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.



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Kindle Genre Watch: New in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Spend less time searching for new genre fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. Best reads in recently-published fantasy and science fiction include:

Fantasy

Hammered by Kevin Hearne. Del Rey, 2011. Print Length: 336 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (20 reviews). Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. This is book three in the author's Iron Druid Chronicles, following Hounded and Hexed.

"Thor, the Norse god of thunder, is worse than a blowhard and a bully - he’s ruined countless lives and killed scores of innocents. After centuries, Viking vampire Leif Helgarson is ready to get his vengeance, and he’s asked his friend Atticus O’Sullivan, the last of the Druids, to help take down this Norse nightmare. One survival strategy has worked for Atticus for more than two thousand years: stay away from the guy with the lightning bolts. But things are heating up in Atticus’s home base of Tempe, Arizona..." - Publisher.

The Chronicles of Kale: A Dragon's Awakening by Aya Knight. Old Line Publishing, 2011. Print Length: 396 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (45 reviews). Kindle edition $4.95; Paperback $16.56. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Kale Firehart is a young dragon, and the sole survivor of his race. As a tyrannical general and his massive bloodthirsty army close in on Kale - the most unexpected circumstance transpires. With time against him, Kale’s trusted friend, a veteran arcane sorcerer, transforms him into the one thing he despises most - a human. Kale must unwillingly live among human-kind as he embarks upon an extraordinary journey. With a band of unlikely friends by his side, can Kale overcome the obstacles before him and return to the life he once knew? The age of dragons is all but over..." - Publisher.

Ghost Story: A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Roc, 2011. Print Length: 496 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $14.99; Hardcover $14.71. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. This is book thirteen in Butcher's Dresden Files series that began with Storm Front. A word to the wise: It's a good idea to read the series in order if you wish to keep track of the characters and plot twists. Click here for a list of the earlier volumes, all of which are available in Kindle editions.

"When we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn't doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin. But being dead doesn't stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has nobody, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own. To save his friends - and his own soul - Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic..." - Publisher.

Science Fiction

7th Sigma by Steven Gould. Tor Books, 2011. Print Length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (11 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $16.49. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Welcome to the territory. Leave your metal behind, all of it. The bugs will eat it, and they’ll go right through you to get it... Don’t carry it, don’t wear it, and for god’s sake don’t come here if you’ve got a pacemaker. The bugs showed up about fifty years ago - self-replicating, solar-powered, metal-eating machines. No one knows where they came from. They don’t like water, though, so they’ve stayed in the desert Southwest. The territory. People still live here, but they do it without metal. Log cabins, ceramics, what plastic they can get that will survive the sun and heat. Technology has adapted, and so have the people. Kimble Monroe has chosen to live in the territory. He was born here, and he is extraordinarily well adapted to it. He’s one in a million. Maybe one in a billion...an extraordinary SF novel of survival and personal triumph against all the odds." - Publisher.

BioShock: Rapture by John Shirley. Tor Books, 2011. Print Length: 432 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $16.32. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It's the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal has redefined American politics. Taxes are at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has brought a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business has many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom is diminishing...and many are desperate to take that freedom back. Among them is a great dreamer, an immigrant who pulled himself from the depths of poverty to become one of the wealthiest and admired men in the world. That man is Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserve better. And so he set out to create the impossible, a utopia free from government, censorship, and moral restrictions on science - where what you give is what you get. He created Rapture - the shining city below the sea. But as we all know, this utopia suffered a great tragedy. This is the story of how it all came to be... " - Publisher.

Rule 34 by Charles Stross. Ace, 2011. Print Length: 368 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (12 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover: $16.77. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Hugo winner Stross blends plausible near-future SF and crime in this brisk sequel to 2007's Halting State. In the mid-2020s, the police monitor the Internet full-time to prevent crime. In Edinburgh, this job falls to DI Liz Kavanaugh's Rule 34 Squad (whose name refers to the Internet truism that 'if it exists, there's porn about it'). Kavanaugh views the position as a demotion, but she has a chance to get her once-promising career back on track when she is called to supervise the inquiry into the death of drug dealer Michael Blair..." - Publishers Weekly.
"...draws on tomorrow's technologies to create a story that features intriguingly offbeat characters and a labyrinthine puzzle of a plot. Fans of modern cyber-fi literature as well as technological thrillers should enjoy this thinking person's sf adventure." - Library Journal.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.



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A Week of Entertainment: Kindle Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly's July 22nd Issue

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the July 22nd issue include:

Stone Arabia, by Dana Spiotta. Scribner, 2011. Print length: 256 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...another movingly fab narrative; it's as though Nabokov had writtten a rock novel." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $10.99; Hardcover $13.20. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"Dana Spiotta’s moving and intrepid third novel, is about family, obsession, memory, and the urge to create - in isolation, at the margins of our winner-take-all culture. In the sibling relationship, 'there are no first impressions, no seductions, no getting to know each other,' says Denise Kranis. For her and her brother, Nik, now in their forties, no relationship is more significant. They grew up in Los Angeles in the late seventies and early eighties. Nik was always the artist, always wrote music, always had a band. Now he makes his art in private, obsessively documenting the work, but never testing it in the world. Denise remains Nik’s most passionate and acute audience, sometimes his only audience. She is also her family’s first defense against the world’s fragility. Friends die, their mother’s memory and mind unravel, and the news of global catastrophe and individual tragedy haunts Denise. When her daughter, Ada, decides to make a film about Nik, everyone’s vulnerabilities seem to escalate." - Amazon.

Thick as Thieves, by Peter Spiegelman. Knopf, 2011. Print length: 320 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...well-constructed crime thriller...a complex, satisfying tale." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (26 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $15.32. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"A new thriller that takes us inside a hair-raising heist, where paranoia hangs as heavy as the tropical heat, and the only law is Murphy’s. Carr - ex-CIA - is the reluctant leader of an elite crew planning a robbery of such extraordinary proportions that it will leave them all set for life. Diamonds, money-laundering, and extortion go into a timed-to-the-minute scheme that unfurls across South America, Miami, and Grand Cayman Island. Carr’s cohorts are seasoned pros, but they’re wound drum-tight: months before, the man who brought them together was killed in what Carr suspects was a setup. And there are other loose ends... Terrifically suspenseful and psychologically complex, Thick as Thieves is a rare, penetrating look into the sophisticated machinations of an unparalleled crime, and Peter Spiegelman’s most accomplished and galvanizing novel yet." - Publisher.

A Dance with Dragons, by George R. R. Martin. Bantam, 2011. Print Length: 1040 p. FANTASY. EW's slant: "By turns thrilling, funny, scary, emotionally devastating, oddly inspirational, and just plain grand..." Amazon customer rating: 3 stars (273 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99; Hardcover $18.81. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. This is book five in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series which began with A Game of Thrones.

"In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance - beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. As they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind. From all corners, bitter conflicts reignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all." - from the hardcover edition.

A Death in Summer, by Benjamin Black. Henry Holt and Co., 2011. Print length: 320 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "The prose sparkles, as always...It's still a good show, but there appears to be much more misdirection than real direction. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $15.26. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"On a sweltering summer afternoon, newspaper tycoon Richard Jewell - known to his many enemies as Diamond Dick - is discovered with his head blown off by a shotgun blast. But is it suicide or murder? For help with the investigation, Detective Inspector Hackett calls in his old friend Quirke, who has unusual access to Dublin's elite. Jewell's coolly elegant French wife, Françoise, seems less than shocked by her husband's death. But Dannie, Jewell's high-strung sister, is devastated, and Quirke is surprised to learn that in her grief she has turned to an unexpected friend: David Sinclair, Quirke's ambitious assistant in the pathology lab at the Hospital of the Holy Family. Further, Sinclair has been seeing Quirke's fractious daughter Phoebe, and an unlikely romance is blossoming between the two. As a record heat wave envelops the city and the secret deals underpinning Diamond Dick's empire begin to be revealed, Quirke and Hackett find themselves caught up in a dark web of intrigue and violence that threatens to end in disaster." - Amazon.

The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities , by Katharine Weber. crown, 2011. Print length: 288 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...less a family memoir than a family biography. Which is good, because Weber's kin are more than fascinating enough to stand on their own without the embellishments of personal memory." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $15.11. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Novelist Weber is the granddaughter of Broadway composer Kay Swift, who was married to banker James Warburg and had a romantic liaison with George Gershwin. Weber considers her family history to examine how the past affects the present. Much of the book concerns the author's dysfunctional relationships with her father, Sidney Kaufman, and mother, Andrea Warburg. Along the way, Weber describes a host of eccentric characters, from Zero Mostel to Ezra Pound, and her discovery of the past through FBI files on her father...A thoroughly engaging family memoir." - Bruce R. Schueneman for Library Journal.

The Devil All the Time, by Donald Ray Pollock. Doubleday, 2011. Print length: 272 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...unrepentantly dark debut novel about sexual violence, emotional violence, and plain old violence violence." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $13.99; Hardcover $14.82. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...an exceptionally gritty, twisted page-turner. This follow-up to 2008's Knockemstiff is set in the Midwest during the mid-century, but reads more like a gothic Western. Lawlessness roams the rural, god-fearing landscape of Ohio and West Virginia, inhabitated by the likes of Pollock's deranged-yet-compelling cast of characters - a husband and wife who take vacations to murder hitchhikers, a faux preacher and his crippled accomplice on the lam for manslaughter, and an orphan with a penchant for exacting violent justice. Needless to say, The Devil All the Time is a brutal novel, but Pollock exacts the kind of precision and control over his language that keeps the violence from ever feeling gratuitous. The three storylines eventually converge in a riveting moment that will leave readers floored and haunted." - Kevin Nguyen for Amazon.com Review.

The Inverted Forest, by John Dalton. Scribner, 2011. Print length: 336 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...a gripping, tender, and at times disturbing tale...". Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.21. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"Late on a warm summer night in rural Missouri, an elderly camp director hears a squeal of joyous female laughter and goes to investigate. At the camp swimming pool he comes upon a bewildering scene: his counselors stripped naked and engaged in a provocative celebration. The first camp session is set to start in just two days. He fires them all. As a result, new counselors must be quickly hired and brought to the Kindermann Forest Summer Camp. One of them is Wyatt Huddy, a genetically disfigured young man who has been living in a Salvation Army facility. Gentle and diligent, large and imposing, Wyatt suffers a deep anxiety that his intelligence might be subnormal. All his life he’s been misjudged because of his irregular features. But while Wyatt is not worldly, he is also not an innocent. He has escaped a punishing home life with a reclusive and violent older sister. Along with the other new counselors, Wyatt arrives expecting to care for children. To their astonishment, they learn that for the first two weeks of the camping season they will be responsible for 104 severely developmentally disabled adults, all of them wards of the state. Written with scrupulous fidelity to the strong passions running beneath the surface of camp life, The Inverted Forest is filled with yearning, desire, lust, banked hope, and unexpected devotion." - Publisher.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.

Savoring the Past: New Kindle Books for History Buffs

If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. - Winston Churchill.

The American philosopher George Santayana is quoted as saying that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. With more than 200,000 books in the Amazon Kindle bookstore's "history" category, Kindle-owning history buffs will not run out of reading material any time soon. Recent history nonfiction includes:

Before The Holocaust: Three German-Jewish Lives, 1870-1939, edited and translated by Thomas Dunlap. Xlibris, 2011. Print Length: 456 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $7.99; Hardcover $18.24. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Before The Holocaust opens a window onto the turbulent history of German Jewry between 1870 and 1939 through three autobiographies: Käte Frankenthal, a physician, health, reformer, and social democratic politician from Berlin; Max Moses Polke a lawyer and Zionist supporter from Breslau; and Joseph Benjamin Levy, a teacher and cantor from Frankfurt am Main. These autobiographies reveal some of the lives that were possible for German Jews in the years between the establishment of the Reich in 1871, when they were finally granted full political and civic right, and the assumption of power by the National Socialists in 1933. They provide insight into the society of Germany during the imperial period and World War I, the unsettled politics and social and economic upheaval of the Weimar years (1919-1933), and the circumstances that led to the rise of the National Socialists. Finally, they chronicle the assault on the Jewish community between 1933 and 1939, a period that paved the way for the systematic genocide that soon followed." - http://beforetheholocaustbook.com/book.html

The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century, by Scott Miller. Random House, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $13.99; Hardcover $17.20. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
" In 1901, as America tallied its gains from a period of unprecedented imperial expansion, an assassin’s bullet shattered the nation’s confidence. The shocking murder of President William McKinley threw into stark relief the emerging new world order of what would come to be known as the American Century. The President and the Assassin is the story of the momentous years leading up to that event, and of the very different paths that brought together two of the most compelling figures of the era: President William McKinley and Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who murdered him. With a deft narrative hand, journalist Scott Miller chronicles how these two men, each pursuing what he considered the right and honorable path, collided in violence at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Along the way, readers meet a veritable who’s who of turn-of-the-century America: John Hay, McKinley’s visionary secretary of state, whose diplomatic efforts paved the way for a half century of Western exploitation of China; Emma Goldman, the radical anarchist whose incendiary rhetoric inspired Czolgosz to dare the unthinkable; and Theodore Roosevelt, the vainglorious vice president whose 1898 charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba is but one of many thrilling military adventures recounted here." - from the hardcover edition.

Harlem: The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America, by Jonathan Gill. Grove Press, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $14.16; Hardcover $21.86. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Harlem is perhaps the most famous, iconic neighborhood in the United States. A bastion of freedom and the capital of Black America, Harlem's twentieth century renaissance changed our arts, culture, and politics forever. From Henry Hudson's first contact with native Harlemites, through Harlem's years as a colonial outpost on the edge of the known world, Gill traces the neighborhood's story, marshaling a tremendous wealth of detail and a host of fascinating figures from George Washington to Langston Hughes. Harlem was an agricultural center under British rule and the site of a key early battle in the Revolutionary War. Later, wealthy elites including Alexander Hamilton built great estates there for entertainment and respite from the epidemics ravaging downtown. In the nineteenth century, transportation urbanized Harlem and brought waves of immigrants from Germany, Italy, Ireland, and elsewhere. Extensively researched, impressively synthesized, eminently readable..." - Publisher.

Don't Know Much About History, Anniversary Edition: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned, by Kenneth C. Davis. Harper Collins, 2011. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $17.81. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Here, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its debut as a New York Times bestseller, is the revised, updated, and expanded edition of the classic anti-textbook that changed the way we look at history. First published two decades ago, Don't Know Much About® History took readers on a rollicking ride through more than five hundred years of American history, from Columbus's voyages to recent events. The book became an instant classic and has sold more than 1.6 million copies. Now Davis has brought his groundbreaking work up to the present, including the history of an 'Era of Broken Trust,' from the end of the Clinton administration through the recent Great Recession. This additional material covers the horrific events of 9/11and the rise of conspiracy theorists, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levees, the global financial meltdown, the election of Barack Obama, and the national controversy of same-sex marriage. For history buffs and history-phobes alike,...Davis shows once more why People magazine said, 'Reading him is like returning to the classroom of the best teacher you ever had.' " - Amazon.

Normandy Crucible: The Decisive Battle that Shaped World War II in Europe, by John Prados. NAL, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $17.13. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"The Battle of Normandy was the greatest offensive campaign the world had ever seen. Millions of soldiers battling for control of Europe were thrust onto the front lines of a massive war unlike any experienced in history. But the greatest of clashes would prove to be the crucible in which the outcome of World War II would be decided. Author John Prados tells the story of how and why the tactics and battle plans of Normandy proved so formative, and reconstructs the climactic Allied Normandy breakout from both sides of the battle lines. Prados is a Senior Research Fellow on national security affairs, including foreign affairs, intelligence, and military subjects, at the National Security Archive." - Amazon.

The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II , by Denis Avey, with Rob Broomby. Da Capo Press, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $14.20. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...the extraordinary true story of a British soldier who marched willingly into the concentration camp, Buna-Monowitz, known as Auschwitz III. In the summer of 1944, Denis Avey was being held in a British POW labour camp, E715, near Auschwitz III. He had heard of the brutality meted out to the prisoners there and he was determined to witness what he could. He hatched a plan to swap places with a Jewish inmate and smuggled himself into his sector of the camp. He spent the night there on two occasions and experienced at first-hand the cruelty of a place where slave workers, had been sentenced to death through labor. Astonishingly, he survived to witness the aftermath of the Death March where thousands of prisoners were murdered by the Nazis as the Soviet Army advanced. After his own long trek right across central Europe he was repatriated to Britain. For decades he couldn't bring himself to revisit the past that haunted his dreams, but now Denis Avey feels able to tell the full story..." - Amazon.

A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War, by Amanda Foreman. Random House, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $17.99; Hardcover $19.88. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Even before the first rumblings of secession shook the halls of Congress, British involvement in the coming schism was inevitable. Britain was dependent on the South for cotton, and in turn the Confederacy relied almost exclusively on Britain for guns, bullets, and ships. The Union sought to block any diplomacy between the two and consistently teetered on the brink of war with Britain. For four years the complex web of relationships between the countries led to defeats and victories both minute and history-making. In A World on Fire, Amanda Foreman examines the fraught relations from multiple angles while she introduces characters both humble and grand, bringing them to vivid life over the course of her sweeping and brilliant narrative. Between 1861 and 1865, thousands of British citizens volunteered for service on both sides of the Civil War. From the first cannon blasts on Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, they served as officers and infantrymen, sailors and nurses, blockade runners and spies. Through personal letters, diaries, and journals, Foreman has woven together their experiences to form a panoramic yet intimate view of the war on the front lines, in the prison camps, and in the great cities of both the Union and the Confederacy.... a complex and groundbreaking work that will surely cement Amanda Foreman’s position as one of the most influential historians of our time. Foreman is a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London.

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars, by Paul Collins. Crown, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $15.78. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime are turning up all over New York, but the police are baffled... The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives
headlong into the era’s most baffling murder mystery. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Reenactments of the murder were staged in Times Square, armed reporters lurked in the streets of Hell’s Kitchen in pursuit of suspects, and an unlikely trio - a hard-luck cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor - all raced to solve the crime....a rollicking tale - a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that have dominated media to this day." - from the hardcover edition.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.


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What People Magazine is Reading This Week (July 11th Issue)

For those Kindle readers who, like me, read for entertainment, scanning the book reviews in People magazine is good way to check out new people-related books - celebrity bios, popular novels, absorbing nonfiction - just hitting bookstore shelves. Featured in the July 11th issue of People:

You're Next, by Greg Hurwitz. St. Martin's Press, 2011. Print Length: 416 p. THRILLER. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (33 reviews). People's slant: "Hurwitz's latest thriller moves fast enough to glide over a few plot holes and provides a fun tour of green architecture and the Indian casino business along the way." Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $14.38. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Mike Wingate, abandoned by his father at four and raised in foster care, is finally living the life he always dreamed of - he’s happily married with a precocious 8-year-old daughter, and his construction company is about to finish a 'green' housing development that will secure a solid future for them all. But then something from his own past, a past he doesn’t even remember, comes back to visit terror upon him and his family. Shady characters begin threatening Mike and, when he reports them, the police seem more interested in Mike’s murky past than in protecting him. Now, with Mike, his wife Annabel and daughter Kat suddenly under attack from all sides, Mike turns to Shep, a dangerous man - and Mike’s only true friend - from his childhood days in foster care. " - Amazon.

The Kid, by Sapphire. Penguin Publishing, 2011. Print Length: 384 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 2 stars (8 reviews). People's slant: "...unflinching authenticity makes it tough yet ultimately rewarding to read." Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.10. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Fifteen years and an Oscar-nominated movie adaptation have passed by since Push, and, with Precious long dead, Sapphire unfurls the story of her son, Jamal Abdul Louis Jones. Orphan Jamal winds up at a foster home where he's mocked and beaten to the point of having to be hospitalized. Fast forward, and Abdul, going by the name J.J., is at the St. Ailanthus School for boys, where he's sexually abused by priests and in turn sexually abuses a couple of boys at the school. When J.J. is thrown out of the school, he struggles to handle his own conflicting desires and the rigors of getting by in a tough world by himself, often with very little comprehension of consequences. J.J. is a great creation, if a sometimes frustrating one: Sapphire excels at getting readers into the head of a frightened, enraged, and frustrated wild child, but that isn't always the best vantage point from which to watch this heartbreaking story unfold. This is a sobering and unflinching study of the legacy of abuse, and while the narration can leave readers more puzzled than piqued, it's a harrowing story." - Publishers Weekly.

The One That I Want, by Allison Winn Scotch. Crown, 2011. Print Length: 288 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (48 reviews). People's slant: "Emotional and engrossing." Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $16.32. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"Tilly Farmer is thirty-two years old and has the perfect life she always dreamed of: married to her high school sweetheart, working as a guidance counselor in her hometown, trying for a baby. Perfect. In fact, on the surface you might never know how tough things used to be. At seventeen, Tilly lost her mother to cancer, her father drowned his grief in alcohol, and she played parent to her two younger sisters more often than being a kid herself. Still Tilly never let tragedy overtake her belief that hard work and good cheer could solve any problem. Of course she’s also spent a lifetime plastering a smile on her face and putting everyone else’s problems ahead of her own. But that relentless happiness has served her well - her sisters are grown and content, her dad is ten years sober, and she’s helping her students achieve all their dreams while she and her husband, Tyler, start a family. A perfect life indeed. Then one sweltering afternoon at the local fair, everything changes..." - Amazon.

French Lessons, by Ellen Sussman. Ballantine Books, 2011. Print length: 256 p. NOVEL. People's slant: "With writing that reflects the charm of the setting and a cynical wit, Sussman makes the romance of Paris come alive without lapsing into cliché." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (29 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $8.91. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love, and loss as their lives intersect in surprising ways. Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely expat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world. As they meet with their tutors - Josie with Nico, a sensitive poet; Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt; and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantal - each succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures." - from the trade paperback edition.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See. Random House, 2005. Print Length: 288 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (768 reviews). People's slant: "...exquisite novel set in 19th century China..." Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $9.00. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"During the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, an old woman fainted in a rural train station. While trying to identify her, authorities found scraps of paper with writing they had never seen, leading them to think she was a spy. But scholars identified the script as nu shu, a writing that had been used exclusively by women for over a thousand years in a remote area of southern Hunan province. Nu shu was different from conventional Chinese script in that it was phonetic and its interpretation was based on context. Years later when author Lisa See became aware of nu shu, her discovery turned into an obsession, resulting in her fourth novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Written in the style of a memoir, the book is narrated by 80-year-old Lily Yi as she looks back on her life. Her story begins in 1828 in her village of Puwei in southwestern China...The wonder of this book is that it takes readers to a place at once foreign and familiar - foreign because of its time and setting, yet familiar because this landscape of love and sorrow is inhabited by us all...a triumph on every level, a beautiful, heartbreaking story." - Judy Fong Bates for The Washington Post.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.

Kindle Genre Watch: New in Romance & Western Fiction

Spend less time searching for new fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. Recent genre fiction releases in romance and western fiction include:

Romance

Escape by Barbara Delinsky. Doubleday, 2011. Print length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.44. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Emily Aulenbach is thirty, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. An idealist, she had once dreamed of representing victims of corporate abuse, but she spends her days in a cubicle talking on the phone with vic­tims of tainted bottled water - and she is on the bottler’s side. And it isn’t only work. It’s her sister, her friends, even her husband, Tim, with whom she doesn’t connect the way she used to. She doesn’t connect to much in her life, period, with the exception of three things - her computer, her BlackBerry, and her watch. Acting on impulse, Emily leaves work early one day, goes home, packs her bag, and takes off..." - from the hardcover edition.

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (196 reviews). Kindle edition $1.99 (reduced from $7.99 for a limited time). Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Simon Basset, the irresistible Duke of Hastings, has hatched a plan to keep himself free from the town's marriage-minded society mothers. He pretends to be engaged to the lovely Daphne Bridgerton. After all, it isn't as if the brooding rogue has any real plans to marry - though there is something about the alluring Miss Bridgerton that sets Simon's heart beating a bit faster. And as for Daphne, surely the clever debutante will attract some very worthy suitors now that it seems a duke has declared her desirable. But as Daphne waltzes across ballroom after ballroom with Simon, she soon forgets that their courtship is a complete sham..." - Amazon.

Heartless by Gail Carriger. Publisher. Print length: Amazon customer rating: Kindle edition $7.99; Paperback $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled. This is book four in the Parasol Protectorate, the author's steampunk paranormal romance series. The first three volumes - all available in Kindle editions - are Soulless, Changeless and Blameless.
"Lady Alexia Maccon, soulless, is at it again, only this time the trouble is not her fault. When a mad ghost threatens the queen, Alexia is on the case, following a trail that leads her deep into her husband's past. Top that off with a sister who has joined the suffragette movement (shocking!), Madame Lefoux's latest mechanical invention, and a plague of zombie porcupines and Alexia barely has time to remember she happens to be eight months pregnant... " - Amazon.

Waking Up With the Duke by Lorraine Heath. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (29 reviews). Kindle edition $7.99; Paperback $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. This is book three in Heath's London's Greatest Lovers series, following Passions of a Wicked Earl and Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman.

"Renowned for his bedchamber prowess, Ransom Seymour, the Duke of Ainsley, owes a debt to a friend. But the payment expected is most shocking, even to an unrepentant rake - for he's being asked to provide his friend's exquisite wife with what she most dearly covets: a child. Lady Jayne Seymour, Marchioness of Walfort, is furious that such a scandalous agreement would be made. If she acquiesces, there must be rules: no kissing...and, certainly,no pleasure..." - Amazon.

Betrayal by Fern Michaels. Zebra Books, 2011. Print length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $5.23; Paperback $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Kate and Alex Rocket are blessed with a wonderful marriage and a lovely home. Although Kate can’t have children, she and Alex look upon Sara and Emily, daughters of their good friends Don and Debbie Winter, as part of their family. With one phone call, everything changes. Sara accuses Alex of a terrible act, opening up a vicious rift between the couples. Kate watches helplessly as her innocent husband is convicted and sent to prison. But when even greater tragedy strikes, Kate’s grief turns to anger, and she discovers an inner strength and steel-edged resolve to clear her husband’s name..." - Amazon.


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Westerns

Revenge at Hatchet Creek by Frank Leslie. Signet, 2011. Print length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $6.99; Paperback $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Half-white, half-Indian Yakima Henry has been ambushed and badly injured. Bleeding to death, he doesn't know who'll get to him first: the gunslingers or hungry wolves. Thankfully, comely widow Aubrey Coffin comes along and drags Yakima to safety. But as he heals, lawless desperados circle closer to finish the job they started - putting his innocent savior in the cross fire." - Amazon.

Redemption by William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone. Pinnacle Books, 2011. Print length: 352 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $3.83; Paperback $6.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"His name is Jonas Lynch. A California gunman with a blood-soaked past, he arrives in Fury, Arizona, looking for redemption. Unfortunately, Lynch’s reputation precedes him, and Marshal Jason Fury is none too thrilled about harboring a wanted criminal - even if Lynch seems like a decent man. One revenge-seeking enemy wants Lynch dead. Another reward-hungry bounty hunter wants him alive. And for the next few days, the town of Fury will be caught in the crossfire..." - Amazon.

Shannon by Harold G. Ross. Self-Published, 2011. Print length: Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $3.99; Paperback $15.95. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Good looking to the ladies, young and confident in his abilities, and a very good hand with a gun, Robert Shannon decides to leave off herding cattle, dealing with outlaws and Commancheros, and living the relatively isolated life of a cowboy to adventure off and see the world. What he finds is that the world has other hazards for the unwary, including bad guys on the high seas and duplicitous diamond traders on land..." - author's website.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.

A Week of Entertainment: Kindle Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly's July 8th/July 15th Issue

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the July 8th/July 15th double issue include:

The Last Werewolf, by Glen Duncan. Knopf, 2011. Print length: 304 p. THRILLER. EW's slant: "Can a novel about werewolves be both gorily pulpy and classy? Glen Duncan comes bloodily close in...a surprisingly well-written yarn about a Kant-quoting lycanthrope on the run..." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (32 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $15.57. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Meet Jake. A bit on the elderly side (he turns 201 in March), but you’d never suspect it. Nonstop sex and exercise will do that for you - and a diet with lots of animal protein. Jake is a werewolf, and after the unfortunate and violent death of his one contemporary, he is now the last of his species. Although he is physically healthy, Jake is deeply distraught and lonely. Jake’s depression has carried him to the point where he is actually contemplating suicide - even if it means terminating a legend thousands of years old. It would seem to be easy enough for him to end everything. But for very different reasons there are two dangerous groups pursuing him who will stop at nothing to keep him alive..." - from the hardcover edition.

The House in France, by Gully Wells. Knopf, 2011. Print length: 320 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...engrossingly appalling memoir..." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $13.99; Hardcover $16.49. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Set in Provence, London, and New York, this is a daughter’s brilliant and witty memoir of her mother and stepfather - Dee Wells, the glamorous and rebellious American journalist, and A. J. Ayer, the celebrated and worldly Oxford philosopher - and the life they lived at the center of absolutely everything. Gully Wells takes us into the heart of London’s lively, liberated intellectual inner circle of the 1960s. Here are Alan Bennett, Isaiah Berlin, Iris Murdoch, Bertrand Russell, Jonathan Miller, Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens, Robert Kennedy, and Claus von Bülow, and later in New York a completely different mix: Mayor John Lindsay, Mike Tyson, and lingerie king Fernando Sánchez. We meet Wells’s adventurous mother, a television commentator earning a reputation for her outspoken style and progressive views, and her stepfather, an icon in the world of twentieth-century philosophy, proving himself as prodigious a womanizer as he is a thinker. Woven throughout is La Migoua, the old farmhouse in France... where her parents and their friends came together every year, and where Gully herself learned some of the enduring lessons of a life well lived." - from the hardcover edition.

The Blow-Off, by Jim Knipfel. Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print length: 336 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...a weary, hilariously sardonic shake of the head at the media and the public's willingness, even outright desire, to get riled up over nothing in particular." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $10.20. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"Monster Stalks NYC. When a local drunk is mugged near the toxic Gowanus Canal by 'a hulking, hairy beast who smells really bad,' Hank Kalabander thinks nothing of blaming the assault on the legendary Bigfoot. His sardonic crime blotter for The Hornet, a local Brooklyn rag, often gleefully recounts the tragedies that befall the borough’s dimmer residents. But when an upstart reporter from The Eagle, a tabloid paper, lifts his piece and implicates Bigfoot in two more attacks, the crimes become local news fodder and the hunt for the 'Gowanus Beast' takes off. Pretty soon the G.B. is to blame for everything from murder and robberies to playground scuffles and a pie’s disappearance - and neighborhood watch patrols have taken to the streets. ... an astoundingly funny send-up of our current times - an intoxicating blend of sharp cultural references, wildly comical scenes, discerning commentary, and unforgettable characters. " - Amazon.

Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror, by Jason Zinoman. Penguin Press, 2011. Print length: 272 p. NONFICTION. EW's slant: "...there is plenty here to make the most knowledgeable of horror fans' head explode." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $17.13. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but at the same time as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film - aggressive, raw, and utterly original. By the late 1960s, horror was stuck in the past, confined mostly to drive-in theaters and exploitation houses, and shunned by critics. Shock Value tells the unlikely story of how the much-disparaged horror film became an ambitious art form while also conquering the multiplex. Directors such as Wes Craven, Roman Polanski, John Carpenter, and Brian De Palma - counterculture types operating largely outside the confines of Hollywood - revolutionized the genre, exploding taboos and bringing a gritty aesthetic, confrontational style, and political edge to horror. Zinoman recounts how these directors produced such classics as Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween, creating a template for horror that has been imitated relentlessly but whose originality has rarely been matched." - Amazon.

French Lessons, by Ellen Sussman. Ballantine Books, 2011. Print length: 256 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "Sussman certainly knows her way around a boudoir scene - and when those boudoirs are in Paris, well, you end up with some sizzling escapist reading." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (25 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $9.00. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love, and loss as their lives intersect in surprising ways. Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely expat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world. As they meet with their tutors - Josie with Nico, a sensitive poet; Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt; and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantal - each succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures." - from the trade paperback edition.

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion, by Janet Reitman. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Print Length: 464 p. NONFICTION. EW's slant: "...meticulously compiled expose, culled from hundreds of interviews...it reads, at times, like an extended encyclopedia entry." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (20 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.12. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Scientology, created in 1954 by a prolific sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world’s fastest growing religion, with millions of members around the world and huge financial holdings. Its celebrity believers keep its profile high, and its teams of 'volunteer ministers' offer aid at disaster sites such as Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a notably closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation, even infiltrating the highest levels of the government to further its goals. Now Janet Reitman offers the first full journalistic history of the Church of Scientology, in an evenhanded account that at last establishes the astonishing truth about the controversial religion. She traces Scientology’s development from the birth of Dianetics to today, following its metamorphosis from a pseudoscientific self-help group to a worldwide spiritual corporation with profound control over its followers and even ex-followers. Based on five years of research, unprecedented access to Church officials, confidential documents, and extensive interviews with current and former Scientologists, this is the defining book about a little-known world. Janet Reitman is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone." - Amazon.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.

New in Popular Science for the Kindle

A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective. - Edward Teller.

Even Kindle readers who read for pleasure like to dip into the heady realm of science nonfiction now and then to keep up with what's happening in a world scientists are still uncovering. Recent additions to Kindle popular science shelves include:

Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom, by Jennifer S. Holland. Workman Publishing Company, 2011. Print length: 160 p. This title has complex layouts and has been optimized for reading on devices with larger screens such as Kindle DX, Kindle for PC/Mac, and Kindle for iPad. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $7.95; Paperback $8.37. Text-to-Speech:
"Written by National Geographic magazine writer Jennifer Holland, Unlikely Friendships documents one heartwarming tale after another of animals who, with nothing else in common, bond in the most unexpected ways. A cat and a bird. A mare and a fawn. An elephant and a sheep. A snake and a hamster. The well-documented stories of Koko the gorilla and All Ball the kitten; and the hippo Owen and the tortoise Mzee. And almost inexplicable stories of predators befriending prey - an Indian leopard slips into a village every night to sleep with a calf. A lionness mothers a baby oryx. Ms. Holland narrates the details and arc of each story, and also offers insights into why..." - Amazon.

Don't Cross Your Eyes...They'll Get Stuck That Way!...And 75 Other Health Myths Debunked, by Dr. Aaron E. Carroll and Dr. Rachel C. Vreeman. St. Martin's Griffin, 2011. Print length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $11.19. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In 2009, Drs. Aaron E. Carroll and Rachel C. Vreeman explored a wide range of myths and misconceptions about our bodies and health in the media sensation, Don't Swallow Your Gum!, featured on The Dr. Oz Show, CNN, and in The New York Times, USA Today, and more. Now, they’re delving into a whole new collection of myths based on the latest scientific research, including: eggs give you high cholesterol, you should stretch before you exercise, kids in day care catch more colds, sit-ups or crunches will flatten your stomach, a glass of warm milk will put you to sleep. ...a perfect balance of authoritative research and breezy humor..." - Amazon.

Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History, by Ben Mezrich. Doubleday, 2011. Print length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $13.99; Hardcover $14.82. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA program had an idea - a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally. Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impregnable laboratory at NASA - past security checkpoints, an electronically locked door with cipher security codes, and camera-lined hallways - and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: the moon rocks. But what does one do with an item so valuable that it’s illegal even to own? And was Thad Roberts - undeniably gifted, picked for one of the most competitive scientific posts imaginable, a possible astronaut - really what he seemed? Mezrich has pored over thousands of pages of court records, FBI transcripts, and NASA documents and has interviewed most of the participants in the crime to reconstruct this Ocean’s Eleven–style heist..." - from the hardcover edition.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, by Jon Ronson. Riverhead, 2011. Print length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (70 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $15.57. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath. Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study." - Amazon.

Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants, by Richard Mabey. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 336 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $15.80. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"From dandelions to crabgrass, stinging nettles to poison ivy, weeds are familiar, pervasive, widely despised, and seemingly invincible. How did they come to be the villains of the natural world? And why can the same plant be considered beautiful in some places but be deemed a menace in others? In Weeds, renowned nature writer Richard Mabey embarks on an engaging journey with the verve and historical breadth of Michael Pollan. Weaving together the insights of botanists, gardeners, artists, and writers with his own travels and lifelong fascination, Mabey shows how these 'botanical thugs' can destroy ecosystems but also can restore war zones and derelict cities; he reveals how weeds have been portrayed, from the 'thorns and thistles' of Genesis to Shakespeare, Walden, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and he explains how kudzu overtook the American South, how poppies sprang up in First World War battlefields, and how 'American weed' replaced the forests of Vietnam ravaged by Agent Orange..." - Amazon.

The Mathematics of Life, by Ian Stewart. Basic Books, 2011. Print length: 368 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $14.98; Hardcover $16.64 . Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Physical scientists joked about biologists as 'stamp collectors,' and this was not far off until Victorian times, as they happily occupied themselves discovering and describing living things. By 1850, botanists counting flower petals wondered why they almost always came up with 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 - the well-known series called Fibonacci numbers. Mystical speculation abounded until 20th-century research proved that the dynamics of growing plants forces cells into specific mathematical relationships. Having dipped the reader's toe into his specialty, Stewart (Cows in the Maze: And Other Mathematical Explorations, 2010, etc.) proceeds to deliver a history of biology followed by a tour of current research. Readers with painful memories of high-school algebra will feel reassured because Stewart accessibly explains population growth, speciation, brain function, chaos and game theory, networking, symmetry and even the mechanism that produces animal stripes and spots. An ingenious overview of biology with emphasis on mathematical ideas - stimulating but requiring careful reading despite the lack of equations." - Kirkus Reviews.

Between Expectations: Lessons from a Pediatric Residency, by Meghan Weir. Free Press, 2011. Print length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (9 reviews).  Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $16.50. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"The three years of residency - when young doctors who have just graduated from medical school take on their own patients for the first time - are grueling in any specialty. But there is a unique challenge to dealing with patients too young to describe where it hurts, and it is not just having to handle their parents... Dr. Weir takes readers into the nurseries, ICUs, and inpatient rooms of one of the country’s busiest hospitals for children, revealing a world many of us never get to see. Meghan MacLean Weir, M.D. obtained her undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology at Princeton University with work on viral protein expression and then went on to study medicine at Stony Brook..." - Amazon.

How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival, by David Kaiser. W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. Print length: 372 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $14.14; Hardcover $15.71. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"For physicists, the 1970s were a time of stagnation. Jobs became scarce, and conformity was encouraged, sometimes stifling exploration of the mysteries of the physical world. Dissatisfied, underemployed, and eternally curious, an eccentric group of physicists in Berkeley, California, banded together to throw off the constraints of the physics mainstream and explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the 'Fundamental Fysiks Group,' they pursued an audacious, speculative approach to physics. They studied quantum entanglement and Bell’s Theorem through the lens of Eastern mysticism and psychic mind-reading, discussing the latest research while lounging in hot tubs. Some even dabbled with LSD to enhance their creativity. Unlikely as it may seem, these iconoclasts spun modern physics in a new direction, forcing mainstream physicists to pay attention to the strange but exciting underpinnings of quantum theory. A lively, entertaining story... David Kaiser is an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." - Amazon.

The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today, by Rob Dunn. Harper Collins, 2011. Print length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.79. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"In the name of progress and clean living, we scrub much of nature off our bodies and try to remove whole kinds of life - parasites, bacteria, mutualists, and predators - to allow ourselves to live free of wild danger. The truth, though, according to biologist Rob Dunn, is that while 'clean living' has benefited us in some ways, it has also made us sicker in others. We are trapped in bodies that evolved to deal with the dependable presence of hundreds of other species. As Dunn reveals, our modern disconnect from the web of life has resulted in unprecedented effects that immunologists, evolutionary biologists, psychologists, and other scientists are only beginning to understand. Through the stories of visionaries, Dunn argues that we can create a richer nature, one in which we choose to surround ourselves with species that benefit us, not just those that, despite us, survive. Dunn is an assistant professor in the department of biology at North Carolina State University... he has written for National Geographic, Natural History, Scientific American, BBC Wildlife, and Seed magazines." - Amazon.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.




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