Nonfiction

Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety
by Kaminer, Wendy
Publisher: Pantheon ISBN: 067944243x $ 24
LJ
With clarity and wit, Kaminer argues that we are society intoxicated by the irrational: religion, spirituality, and popular therapies threaten to replace rational thought with supernaturalism and a belief in personal testimony, no matter how unsubstantiated.

Fiction

Girl With a Pearl Earring
Author: Chevalier, Tracy
Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 052594527x
PWKirkusBooklist
With the precision and focus of an Old Master's painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring paints a vivid portrait of colorful 17th-century Delft, as well as the hauntingly poignant story of one young girl's rite of passage.
Suggested Reading: Vermeer Fiction list.

Fortune's Rocks
Author: Shreve, Anita
Publisher: Little Brown List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316781010
PWLJ
In a summer community on the coast of New Hampshire at the turn of the last century, a girl is drawn into a passionate affair with a married man nearly three times her age. Olympia Biddeford is privileged, well educated, and mature beyond her years - and her affair is with John Haskell, a physician, essayist, and champion of mill workers. Drawn inexorably together on the night of the summer solstice, the pair set in motion a series of events with far-reaching consequences for all involved. Anita Shreve set FORTUNE'S ROCKS in the same house as THE PILOT'S WIFE.

Mystery & Suspense

Cover Story
Author: Boyle, Gerry
Publisher: Prime Crime $ 22.95 ISBN: 042516893x
BooklistPWKirkus
Who killed the mayor of New York City? The answer lies in award-winner Boyle's biggest and boldest novel yet. "Boyle is the genuine article."- Robert B. Parker.

Afterburn
Author: Harrison, Colin
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux $ 25 ISBN: 0374102058
KirkusPW
Charlie Ravich is a survivor whose brutal experience as a POW in Vietnam has more than prepared him for the cutthroat world of global commerce. This high-voltage, international thriller follows the millionaire businessman as he is catapulted into a world of criminal intrigue, sexual obsession, extortion, and death, spanning the mean streets of New York's underworld and Hong Kong's corridors of high finance.

 

All the Lucky Ones Are Dead
Author: Haywood, Gar Anthony
Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399145400
PWBooklist
L.A. private eye Aaron Gunner investigates a rap artist's so-called suicide and comes face-to-face with some of the music business's most notorious power brokers - who don't seem to like Gunner's presence on the case.
Suggested Reading: Fiction Reading List

 

Murder@Maggody.Com
Author: Hess, Joan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster $ 22 ISBN: 0684845636
BooklistPW
E-mail provides the clue to murder in the newest entry in the madcap Maggody series - starring mystery fans' favorite offbeat sleuth, Arly Hanks. "Bawdy, cheerful entertainment."- Kirkus Reviews.

Shame the Devil
Author: Pelecanos, George
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316695238
PWBooklist
Several restaurant workers are murdered by a robber, whose brother is killed by police during the chaotic event. As everyone struggles to heal after the incident, the gunman is determined to kill everyone involved in his brother's death.

The Last King of Texas
Author: Riordan, Rick
Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553801562
BooklistPW
Tres Navarre has a passion for tequila, a Ph.D. in English, and a penchant for trouble. His latest assignment puts him on a carousel-ride collision course with a killer - one-way ticket to betrayal and death in a novel of suspense in which everyone is guilty of something.