"The Warriors"

New from Putnam: The Warriors by Tom Young.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Parson has seen plenty of action lately, so he’s happy with his new assignment as safety officer at a Kyrgyzstan air base. It’s a pretty laidback way to spend the next year.

Or so he thought. On his second day, a C-27 crashes on the runway with a load of electronic gear—and opium. Recruiting his battle companion Sergeant Major Sophia Gold as interpreter, he investigates not only the crash but the source of the cargo, and the answers they find will lead them into a conflict as lethal as any they have known.

A new Balkan war is brewing, driven by a man of ruthless ambition. Parson himself flew during the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, so he’s known their horror firsthand. But neither he nor Gold has seen anything like what’s about to happen now.

Learn more about the book and author at Thomas W. Young's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: The Mullah's Storm.

Writers Read: Thomas W. Young (August 2011).

Writers Read: Tom Young (August 2012).

"Lost Girls"

New from Harper: Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker.

About the book, from the publisher:

Award-winning investigative reporter Robert Kolker delivers a haunting and humanizing account of the true-life search for a serial killer still at large on Long Island, in a compelling tale of unsolved murder and Internet prostitution.

One late spring evening in 2010, Shannan Gilbert, after running through the oceanfront community of Oak Beach screaming for her life, went missing. No one who had heard of her disappearance thought much about what had happened to the twenty-four-year-old: she was a Craigslist prostitute who had been fleeing a scene—of what, no one could be sure. The Suffolk County Police, too, seemed to have paid little attention—until seven months later, when an unexpected discovery in a bramble alongside a nearby highway turned up four bodies, all evenly spaced, all wrapped in burlap. But none of them Shannan's.

There was Maureen Brainard-Barnes, last seen at Penn Station in Manhattan three years earlier, and Melissa Barthelemy, last seen in the Bronx in 2009. There was Megan Waterman, last seen leaving a hotel in Hauppage, Long Island, just a month after Shannan's disappearance in 2010, and Amber Lynn Costello, last seen leaving a house in West Babylon a few months later that same year. Like Shannan, all four women were petite and in their twenties, they all came from out of town to work as escorts, and they all advertised on Craigslist and its competitor, Backpage.

In a triumph of reporting—and in a riveting narrative—Robert Kolker presents the first detailed look at the shadow world of escorts in the Internet age, where making a living is easier than ever and the dangers remain all too real. He has talked exhaustively with the friends and family of each woman to reveal the three-dimensional truths about their lives, the struggling towns they came from, and the dreams they chased. And he has gained unique access to the Oak Beach neighborhood that has found itself the focus of national media scrutiny—where the police have flailed, the body count has risen, and the neighbors have begun pointing fingers at one another. There, in a remote community, out of sight of the beaches and marinas scattered along the South Shore barrier islands, the women's stories come together in death and dark mystery. Lost Girls is a portrait not just of five women, but of unsolved murder in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them.

Visit Robert Kolker's website and blog.

"The Life List"

New from Bantam: The Life List: A Novel by Lori Nelson Spielman.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this utterly charming debut—perfect for fans of Cecelia Ahern’s P.S., I Love You and Allison Winn Scotch’s Time of My Life—one woman sets out to complete her old list of childhood goals, and finds that her lifelong dreams lead her down a path she never expects.

1. Go to Paris
2. Have a baby, maybe two
3. Fall in love

Brett Bohlinger seems to have it all: a plum job, a spacious loft, an irresistibly handsome boyfriend. All in all, a charmed life. That is, until her beloved mother passes away, leaving behind a will with one big stipulation: In order to receive her inheritance, Brett must first complete the life list of goals she’d written when she was a naïve girl of fourteen. Grief-stricken, Brett can barely make sense of her mother’s decision—her childhood dreams don’t resemble her ambitions at age thirty-four in the slightest. Some seem impossible. How can she possibly have a relationship with a father who died seven years ago? Other goals (Be an awesome teacher!) would require her to reinvent her entire future. As Brett reluctantly embarks on a perplexing journey in search of her adolescent dreams, one thing becomes clear. Sometimes life’s sweetest gifts can be found in the most unexpected places.

Visit Lori Nelson Spielman's website.

"The Joker"

New from Simon & Schuster: The Joker: A Memoir by Andrew Hudgins.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since Andrew Hudgins was a child, he was a compulsive joke teller, so when he sat down to write about jokes, he found that he was writing about himself—what jokes taught him and mistaught him, how they often delighted him but occasionally made him nervous with their delight in chaos and sometimes anger. Because Hudgins’s father, a West Point graduate, served in the US Air Force, his family moved frequently; he learned to relate to other kids by telling jokes and watching how his classmates responded. And jokes opened him up to the serious, taboo subjects that his family didn’t talk about openly—religion, race, sex, and death. Hudgins tells and analyzes the jokes that explore the contradictions in the Baptist religion he was brought up in, the jokes that told him what his parents would not tell him about sex, and the racist jokes that his uncle loved, his father hated, and his mother, caught in the middle, was ambivalent about. This book is both a memoir and a meditation on jokes and how they educated, delighted, and occasionally horrified him as he grew.

Writers Read: Andrew Hudgins (March 2009).

"The Fame Thief"

New from Soho Crime: The Fame Thief (Junior Bender Series #3) by Timothy Hallinan.

About the book, from the publisher:

THE LAUGH-OUT-LOUD FUNNY THIRD INSTALLMENT IN THE MYSTERY SERIES FEATURING JUNIOR BENDER, HOLLYWOOD BURGLAR TURNED PRIVATE EYE

There are not many people brave enough to say no to Irwin Dressler, Hollywood’s scariest mob boss-turned-movie king. Even though Dressler is ninety-three years old, LA burglar Junior Bender is quaking in his boots when Dressler’s henchman haul him in for a meeting. Dressler wants Junior to solve a “crime” he believes was committed more than sixty years ago, when an old friend of his, once-famous starlet Dolores La Marr, had her career destroyed after compromising photos were taken of her at a Las Vegas party. Dressler wants justice for Dolores and the shining career she never had.

Junior can’t help but think the whole thing is a little crazy. After all, it’s been seventy years. Even if someone did set Dolores up for a fall from grace back then, they’re probably long dead now. But he can't say no to Irwin Dressler (no one can, really). So he starts digging. And what he finds is that some vendettas never die—they only get more dangerous.

Learn more about the book and author at Timothy Hallinan's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Crashed.

My Book, The Movie: Crashed.

"Midnight"

New from Forge Books: Midnight by Kevin Egan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Midnight is a compulsively readable legal thriller by Kevin Egan that keeps tightening the screws with every page.

How long can you hide a death?

The New York County Courthouse, in Lower Manhattan, has its own rules and traditions. When a judge dies, the members of his staff keep their jobs until the end of that calendar year. So when Judge Alvin Canter quietly expires in his chambers on December 31st, his loyal clerk and secretary find themselves in a difficult situation. Their jobs will vanish at closing time—unless they can conceal the judge’s death until after midnight.

Neither Tom Carroway nor Carol Scilingo can afford to be out of work. Tom is deeply in debt to an impatient loan shark, while Carol is a struggling single mom whose young son and aging mother depend heavily on her. And both Tom and Carol have secrets they’re desperate to keep hidden.

Their plan seems simple enough: make it look like the judge died at home on New Year’s Day. But that’s before other people get involved: a crooked union boss, a brutal mob enforcer, and Carol’s suspicious ex-boyfriend. . . .

Pretty soon, Tom and Carol find themselves over their heads in an increasingly dangerous conspiracy. And if they’re not very careful, more than one body may be discovered in the new year.

Learn more about the book and author at Kevin Egan's website.

"Death was in the Blood"

New from Five Star: Death was in the Blood by Linda L. Richards.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the third Kitty Pangborn novel‚ Kitty finds herself challenged by what-might-have-beens. When Dex is charged with finding out who’s threatening a wealthy industrialist’s daughter‚ Kitty discovers herself back in the social class she was raised to‚ only now she&rsqio;s expected to come in the service entrance. It doesn’t help that the young woman they’ve been hired to look out for doesn’t want Dex and Kitty’s protection: she’s headstrong‚ willful‚ and — in many ways — not unlike Kitty herself.

Set against the backdrop of preparation for the 1932 Olympic games‚ Death Was in the Blood takes the reader smack-dab into the lost history of the City of Angels‚ and the point where Kitty discovers what it means to give it up and let it go.

Learn more about the author and her work at Linda L. Richards' website.

Read "The Story Behind the Story: Death Was in the Blood," at The Rap Sheet.

The Page 69 Test: Death Was the Other Woman.

The Page 69 Test: Death Was in the Picture.

My Book, The Movie: Death Was the Other Woman.

"Recipe for a Happy Life"

New from St. Martin's Griffin: Recipe for a Happy Life: A Novel by Brenda Janowitz.

About the book, from the publisher:

There’s more than one recipe for a happy life.

Hannah Goodman doesn't grow up like most kids on the Upper East side. Her mother, Gray, is an award-winning photojournalist with little time for the banalities of child-rearing, and when she's not jetting off to follow the latest scoop, she's camped out at the Hotel Chelsea. The closest thing Hannah's got to a traditional matriarch is her grandmother—a glamorous widow six times over with a sprawling Hampton’s estate. But Gray is determined that her daughter resist the siren song of the trust fund set, and make her own way in the world. So Hannah does just that—becoming a successful lawyer in New York City, and dating a handsome musician. Hannah has it all, or so it seems, until one hot June day the carefully constructed pieces of her life break apart. When she throws it all in and seeks solace at her grandmother's estate, she discovers that where happiness is concerned, you don’t have to stick to the recipe.

From the author of Jack with a Twist and Scot on the Rocks comes a charming, clever, and romantic novel about three generations of women with a culture all their own.

Visit Brenda Janowitz's website.

"Drift"

New from Forge Books: Drift by Jon McGoran.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Philadelphia narcotics detective Doyle Carrick loses his mother and step-father within weeks of each other, he gains a twenty-day suspension for unprofessional behavior and instructions to lay low at the unfamiliar house he’s inherited in rural Pennsylvania.

Feeling restless and out of place, Doyle is surprised to find himself falling for his new neighbor, Nola Watkins, who’s under pressure to sell her organic farm to a large and mysterious development company. He’s more surprised to see high-powered drug dealers driving the small-town roads—dealers his bosses don’t want to hear about.

But when the drug bust Doyle’s been pushing for goes bad and the threats against Nola turn violent, Doyle begins to discover that what’s growing in the farmland around Philadelphia is much deadlier than anything he could have imagined...

Quick, clever, and terrifying, Jon McGoran’s Drift is a commercial thriller in the tradition of Nelson DeMille’s Plum Island.

Visit Jon McGoran's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

"The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe"

New from Little, Brown and Company: The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe by Mary Simses.

About the book, from the publisher:

A high-powered Manhattan attorney finds love, purpose, and the promise of a simpler life in her grandmother's hometown.

Ellen Branford is going to fulfill her grandmother's dying wish--to find the hometown boy she once loved, and give him her last letter. Ellen leaves Manhattan and her Kennedy-esque fiance for Beacon, Maine. What should be a one-day trip is quickly complicated when she almost drowns in the chilly bay and is saved by a local carpenter. The rescue turns Ellen into something of a local celebrity, which may or may not help her unravel the past her grandmother labored to keep hidden. As she learns about her grandmother and herself, it becomes clear that a 24-hour visit to Beacon may never be enough. THE IRRESISTIBLE BLUEBERRY BAKESHOP & CAFE is a warm and delicious debut about the power of a simpler life.

Visit Mary Simses's website.