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|  | Adams, Lorraine THE ROOM AND THE CHAIR
November 15, 2009 - Capt. Mary Goodwin's F-16 is patrolling the skies over D.C. when a malfunction forces her to eject, landing in a tree. The 32-year-old pilot has been used as a guinea pig in a secret Pentagon project to prevent suicide attacks. Her crash was
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| | Attenberg, Jami THE MELTING SEASON
November 15, 2009 - For Catherine Madison, stealing nearly $200,000 from her estranged husband Thomas was the easy part; it's what to do with herself afterward that proves tricky. Hoping for a fresh start, or at least a chance to bide her time, she drives, trancelike,
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| | Bartulin, Lenny DEATH BY THE BOOK
November 15, 2009 - Jack Susko makes his first entrance clinging to a cliff's edge with his hands cuffed and a gun pointed at him. A flashback shows unsuspecting Jack delivering a handful of books to the remote estate of wealthy Hammond Kasprowicz, who uses the
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| | Benjamin, Melanie ALICE I HAVE BEEN
November 15, 2009 - She was born in 1852, daughter of the dean of Christ Church College, Oxford; she died in 1934, at the height of the Great Depression. But Alice's life reached its literary apex in 1862, when on a summer afternoon Oxford mathematics don Charles
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| | Borodale, Jane THE BOOK OF FIRES
November 15, 2009 - Borodale sets her promising debut in the mid-18th century, when the enclosure of common land deprived the rural poor of their traditional rights of access and led to hunger, crime and savage punishment. Narrator Agnes Trussel, ruined after
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| | Boyd, William ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
November 15, 2009 - In London for a job interview after years of living in America, climatologist Adam Kindred chats briefly with a stranger in an Italian restaurant, then notices the man has left behind a folder. Extracting a business card, he heads for a Sloane
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| | Clinch, Wendy DOUBLE BLACK
November 15, 2009 - Stacey Curtis isn't one for complications. When she walked in on her fianc cheating with a mutual friend, she didn't cause a scene but simply took off in the direction of the nearest ski resort. Ski bumming had always fascinated Stacey, and it
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| | Crais, Robert THE FIRST RULE
November 15, 2009 - Years before he became a partner in Elvis Cole's detective agency (Chasing Darkness, 2008, etc.), Pike was a mercenary whose sharpshooting skills brought him into contact with a wide range of people, many of whom didn't survive the encounter. Now
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| | Dobson, Joanne DEATH WITHOUT TENURE
November 15, 2009 - Each department at Enfield College is restricted to a single tenure appointment this year, and the English faculty must choose between promoting a colleague who's published two books and a slew of scholarly articles and a Native American who never
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| | Echenoz, Jean RUNNING
November 15, 2009 - Goncourt winner Echenoz (Ravel, 2007, etc.) recently seems to be specializing in thinly fictionalizing the lives of real people. Zátopek is a good choice for inherent drama; he was at first rewarded and then punished by Communist Party authorities.
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|  | Ferris, Joshua THE UNNAMED
November 15, 2009 - Tim Farnsworth's condition has no name (hence the title), and it may disappear for years at a time, but when it returns, Tim feels compelled to walk with no destination, to the point of exhaustion, abandoning all responsibilities of work and family
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| | Flanagan, Bill EVENING'S EMPIRE
November 15, 2009 - For his latest fictional foray into the entertainment biz (New Bedlam, 2007, etc.), MTV vice president Flanagan takes as his narrator/protagonist Jack Flynn, a born rock 'n' roll manager who is therefore destined always to be a disappointment to his
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| | Ford, Michael Thomas JANE BITES BACK
November 15, 2009 - Though the standard reference works agree that the author of Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park died in 1817, they're all wrong. After being turned into a vampire by a bite from a contemporaneous celebrity author, Jane Austen faked her own death
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| | Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger 36 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
November 15, 2009 - Goldstein (Betraying Spinoza, 2009, etc.), whose fiction and biographies alike reflect her background in philosophy, has certainly chosen a timely topic. Protagonist Cass Seltzer soared from academic obscurity to bestselling renown with The
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| | Hall, James W. SILENCER
November 15, 2009 - Thorn's plan to donate a big chunk of the land left him by Abigail Bates to the state seems to be improved when Earl Hammond asks him to swap his holdings for Coquina Ranch, the even bigger spread Hammond's son Browning has turned into a hunting
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| | Hannah, Kristin WINTER GARDEN
November 15, 2009 - Meredith, heir apparent to her family's thriving Washington State apple enterprises, and Nina, a globetrotting photojournalist, grew up feeling marginalized by their mother. Anya saw her daughters as merely incidental to her grateful love for their
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| | Harris, Gardiner HAZARD
November 15, 2009 - When a wall in the Blue Gem Mine gives way, veteran miner Amos Blevins watches helplessly as Rob Crane is trapped by an onrush of water. Amos tries desperately to save his young co-worker, but Rob becomes one of nine casualties in the disaster. At a
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| | Harrison, Jim THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER
November 15, 2009 - Patsy Cline's "The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me" is the theme song for these three new novellas. Sarah, the engaging teenage heroine of the title work, has a Bible-thumping mother who does her a favor by running off and a father who's always
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| | Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia FELL PURPOSE
November 15, 2009 - Zellah Wilding, just shy of 17, always did exactly as she was told. She was sweet, she was smart, she never misbehaved—or so her daddy thought until she turned up togged out like a tart, her lights turned permanently off by a pair of tights. Finding
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| | Hoag, Tami DEEPER THAN THE DEAD
November 15, 2009 - On their way home from school, three fifth-graders take a detour through a neighboring woods and oh, how they'll wish they hadn't. It's a fateful detour with agonizing consequences that will render their lives nightmarish. They stumble on the corpse
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| | Hunter, Stephen I, SNIPER
November 15, 2009 - For a while, Carl Hitchcock was viewed as the ultimate warrior: a super marine, a sniper extraordinaire, none more famous. Credited with 93 kills in Vietnam, he traveled the gun-show circuit, basked in gunslinger glory, sold autographs, raked in
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| | Japin, Arthur DIRECTOR'S CUT
November 15, 2009 - An Afterword acknowledges that the author and a beloved female friend are the models for Maxim and Gala, Dutch actors who cross the path of legendary Italian film director Snaporaz (read: Federico Fellini) in Rome during the 1980s. The opening
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| | Jones, Sadie SMALL WARS
November 15, 2009 - The Outcast (2008), her powerfully visualized, emotionally devastating debut, portrayed a loner in postwar England. This follow-up focuses on a couple, Major Hal Treherne and his wife Clara. A career soldier known as a decent and fair man, Hal is
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| | Kaminsky, Stuart M. A WHISPER TO THE LIVING
November 15, 2009 - In Bitsevsky Park, a stocky, middle-aged man sits on a bench, seemingly impervious to wintry blasts. He's been there five days in succession, notes 11-year-old Yuri Platkov. Bright and ever curious, Yuri approaches, puts a few questions, and so
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| | Kaufman, Thomas DRINK THE TEA
November 15, 2009 - Decades after his affair with Colette Andrews, a gorgeous young fan with whom he long ago lost touch, jazz musician Steps Jackson asks his pal Willis Gidney to find the daughter he never knew. Gidney, a part-time detective who works at a record
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| | Knopf, Chris SHORT SQUEEZE
November 15, 2009 - Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, but few can rival Sergey Pontecello, his sister-in-law Eunice Wolsonowicz, and her daughter Wendy and adopted son Oscar, aka Fuzzy. His late wife's sister has taken up residence in his home and won't
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| | Larson, Leslie BREAKING OUT OF BEDLAM
November 15, 2009 - At 82, Cora Sledge is grossly overweight, unable to walk more that a few steps and secretly addicted to pills. Deciding she can no longer take care of herself in the San Diego home where she lived for decades with her husband Abel (recently
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| | Lombardo, Billy THE MAN WITH TWO ARMS
November 15, 2009 - Lombardo (How to Hold a Woman, 2009, etc.) follows the career of ball-playing wunderkind Danny Granville, the child of high-school teacher Henry and desolate Lori. After discovering that his young son can pitch with either hand, Henry begins
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| | Luckett, Jacqueline E. SEARCHING FOR TINA TURNER
November 15, 2009 - While husband Randall is on an extended business trip, Lena stews in their Oakland mansion and reads Tina's autobiography about life after Ike. Randall is no abusive Ike Turner. But he is a self-absorbed businessman who won't go back to marriage
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| | Maxted, Anna RICH AGAIN
November 15, 2009 - London-based globetrotters Jack and Innocence Kent own a chain of boutique hotels and have the multimillions to buy shoes for each new day (her) and a truckload of Prozac (him). Their obscenely overindulged 14-year-old daughter Emily has her sights
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| | McGregor, Jon EVEN THE DOGS
November 15, 2009 - Robert's decomposing body has been found by the cops in his apartment in an unidentified English city. In this plotless novel, the ramifications of his death serve as a focal point. The middle-aged alcoholic slob loved company. The deal was that
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| | McLean, Russel D. THE GOOD SON
November 15, 2009 - Daniel Robertson was only 16 when he left St. Michaels, a small village outside Dundee, after quarreling with his father. More than two decades later, his brother James finds his body hanging from a tree on the family's farm. To fill in the gaps in
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| | Mengiste, Maaza BENEATH THE LION'S GAZE
November 15, 2009 - Striving to preserve moral integrity in the midst of this turmoil is Hailu, a doctor trained in England who maintains his hours at the clinic in Addis Ababa, dispensing medicine and going about his business of quiet healing. While Dawit has no love
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| | Mercer, Ken SLOW FIRE
November 15, 2009 - Leaving behind the gritty streets of Los Angeles and a heroin addiction, former LAPD narcotics detective Will Magowan takes a job as chief of police in the small Northern California town of Haydenville. His advanced skills are required almost
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| | Moran, Johanna THE WIVES OF HENRY OADES
November 15, 2009 - Serious, sometimes horrific developments are lightened by touches of understated, salty wit in Moran's fact-based historical, a fresh and unusual story that moves from New Zealand to California in the 1890s. British accountant Henry Oades, his wife
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| | Noble, Elizabeth THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
November 15, 2009 - When her husband Ed is transferred, self-deprecating Brit Eve Gallagher finds herself both thrilled and terrified at the prospect of starting a new life in New York City. She initially lucks out by finding a gloriously sunny two-bedroom in a
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| | Parks, Brad FACES OF THE GONE
November 15, 2009 - Though Carter Ross, an investigative journalist at the Newark Eagle-Examiner, is only 31, he's unabashedly retrograde. He loves the newspaper game with old-school zeal, the kind that sent Stanley scampering off to darkest Africa in search of Dr.
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| | Parshall, Sandra BROKEN PLACES
November 15, 2009 - Now that she's moved to Mason County, Va., to escape the problems of her past (Disturbing of the Dead, 2007, etc.), Rachel is involved in a nasty murder spree that also has roots in bygone events. While treating the dog of celebrated cartoonist Ben
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| | Pierson, DC THE BOY WHO COULDN'T SLEEP AND NEVER HAD TO
November 15, 2009 - The trippy story begins with artistic dork Darren Bennett meeting a kindred spirit in the brilliant, equally geeky Eric Lederer. Before long they're collaborating on TimeBlaze, a multimedia epic incorporating time travel, an evil conspiracy and
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| | Rash, Ron BURNING BRIGHT
November 15, 2009 - The scourge of meth addiction ravages North Carolina's mountain communities in three of these 12 stories. For Devon, playing guitar for the wasted wretches at a funky roadhouse in "Waiting for the End of the World," it's mordant humor that gets him
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| | Simmons, Dan CARRION COMFORT
November 15, 2009 - Horrormeister Simmons (Drood, 2009, etc.) has been dishing up dollops of gruesome spectacle for decades now, and he's hit on a winning formula: Give vampires and other children of the night lots to do over lots of pages, set up a Big Idea as
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| | Smith, Alexander McCall THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF SCONES
November 15, 2009 - Edinburgh, reflects improbably wealthy gallery owner Matthew, "was always the same; nothing ever changed." But the cumulative effect of tiny changes day after day is to make the city a different place. Matthew himself is the prime example. He's
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| | Todd, Charles THE RED DOOR
November 15, 2009 - Where is Walter Teller? An undiagnosed malady has sent him to the Belvedere Clinic. His wife Jenny, his sister Leticia, his brothers Edwin and Peter and their wives Amy and Susannah worry over him, then become alarmed when he disappears. Family
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| | Wishnia, Kenneth THE FIFTH SERVANT
November 15, 2009 - Most of this debut novel unfolds in or near the ghetto. Forbidden to leave its confines unless wearing "the Jew badge," the ghetto's denizens are nonetheless reasonably content in Prague, "a city that tolerated us, surrounded by an empire full of
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| Online Exclusive
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| "We welcome reader feedback"
November 15, 2009 - Lately in our reader-feedback inbox we've had a few pleas to split our Children's section into subsections based on audience age. I understand these readers' motivations: There are only so many minutes in a day, and to spend some of them reading reviews of books you don't work with can feel burdensome...But I have to say that simply putting together the Best Children's Books (in the Nov. 15 issue) and Best Young Adult Books (in the Dec. 1 issue) supplements this year was agony for me. While it's easy enough, I suppose, to declare Jerry Pinkney's glorious "The Lion and the Mouse" a children's book and Nick Burd's edgy-in-the-extreme "The Vast Fields of Ordinary" a YA book, drawing the line got pretty arbitrary
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