"Heirs of the Body"

New from Minotaur Books: Heirs of the Body: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery by Carola Dunn.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Daisy Dalrymple series continues in Heirs of the Body—when one of four potential claimants to the title of Lord Dalrymple dies a sudden, nasty death, the question on everyone’s mind is, “was it murder”?

In the late 1920’s in England, The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is recruited to help her cousin Edgar—i.e. the Lord Dalrymple. About to turn fifty, Lord Dalrymple decides it is time to find out who would be the heir to the viscountcy. With the help of the family lawyer, who advertises Empire-wide, they have come up with four potential claimants. For his fiftieth birthday, Edgar invites those would-be heirs—along with Daisy and the rest of the family—to Fairacres, the family estate.

In the meantime, Daisy is asked to be the family's representative at the lawyer's interviews with the claimants. Those four are a hotelier from Scarborough, a diamond merchant from South Africa, a young mixed-raced boy from Trinidad, and a sailor from Jamaica. However, according to his very pregnant wife, the sailor has gone missing.

Daisy and Alec must uncover a conspiracy if they are going to stop the killing in the latest from the accomplished master of the genre, Carola Dunn.

Learn more about the book and author at Carola Dunn's website and blog.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Carola Dunn and Trillian.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Housemaid's Daughter"

New from St. Martin's Press: The Housemaid's Daughter by Barbara Mutch.

About the book, from the publisher:

Barbara Mutch's stunning first novel tells a story of love and duty colliding on the arid plains of Apartheid-era South Africa

When Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa, she knows that she does not love the man she is to marry there —her fiance Edward, whom she has not seen for five years. Isolated and estranged in a small town in the harsh Karoo desert, her only real companions are her diary and her housemaid, and later the housemaid's daughter, Ada. When Ada is born, Cathleen recognizes in her someone she can love and respond to in a way that she cannot with her own family.

Under Cathleen’s tutelage, Ada grows into an accomplished pianist and a reader who cannot resist turning the pages of the diary, discovering the secrets Cathleen sought to hide. As they grow closer, Ada sees new possibilities in front of her—a new horizon. But in one night, everything changes, and Cathleen comes home from a trip to find that Ada has disappeared, scorned by her own community. Cathleen must make a choice: should she conform to society, or search for the girl who has become closer to her than her own daughter?

Set against the backdrop of a beautiful, yet divided land, The Housemaid's Daughter is a startling and thought-provoking novel that intricately portrays the drama and heartbreak of two women who rise above cruelty to find love, hope, and redemption.

Visit Barbara Mutch's website and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kaleidocide"

New from Thomas Dunne Books: Kaleidocide: A Peacer Novel by Dave Swavely.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this sequel to Silhouette, Michael Ares must survive a series of assassination attempts to find out why he was destined to become one of the most powerful men on the planet

In the near future, a post-quake San Francisco is ruled by a private corporation called the Bay Area Security Service. BASS has established and maintained order in this new city-state with a police force of “peacers” who have a license to kill, and the company has developed a cutting-edge antigravity technology coveted by the rest of the world. Michael Ares has recently inherited the throne of BASS, and immediately finds himself marked for assassination by an even more powerful leader, the Chinese general Zhang Sun.

Michael doesn’t understand why he was chosen to play this important role, nor does he know why Sun is so determined to see him dead. But to find out, he will first have to survive not just one attempt on his life, but an unrelenting barrage that has never failed to end in the death of the target. His only hope is to entrust his fate to an old friend whose company provides personal high-tech protection that is almost as impressive as the forces arrayed against him.

A future world of aerocars, net glasses, and neural cyberware provides the backdrop for this timeless tale of good and evil, love and revenge, truth and mystery. Dave Swavely's Kaleidocide is filled with a kaleidoscope of colorful characters and thrilling action that will make readers’ hearts pound and minds race at the same time.

Visit Dave Swavely's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Spoils"

New from Knopf Books for Young Readers: Spoils by Tammar Stein.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Leni's family hit the lottery, life got ... well, strange. Leni's parents built a mansion fit for royalty; they enrolled their daughter in the fanciest, most expensive private school in Florida; and they even bought Leni a dolphin for her 12th birthday (she made them take it back). But all of that extravagant living has caught up with them and the lottery money is about to run out—except for the large trust fund Leni will inherit on her 18th birthday, now only a week away. Leni is prepared to give her parents the money until her sister, Natasha, confesses a shocking secret—one that threatens to destroy their entire family. Leni has been ordered to fix it, but how?

Visit Tammar Stein's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Glorious War"

New from St. Martin's Press: Glorious War: The Civil War Adventures of George Armstrong Custer by Thom Hatch.

About the book, from the publisher:

Glorious War, the thrilling and definitive biography of George Armstrong Custer’s Civil War years, is nothing short of a heart-pounding cavalry charge through the battlefield heroics that thrust the gallant young officer into the national spotlight in the midst of the country’s darkest hours. From West Point to the daring actions that propelled him to the rank of general at age twenty-three to his unlikely romance with Libbie Bacon, Custer’s exploits are the stuff of legend.

Always leading his men from the front with a personal courage seldom seen before or since, he was a key part of nearly every major engagement in the east. Not only did Custer capture the first battle flag taken by the Union and receive the white flag of surrender at Appomattox, but his field generalship at Gettysburg against Confederate cavalry General Jeb Stuart had historic implications in changing the course of that pivotal battle.

For decades, historians have looked at Custer strictly through the lens of his death on the frontier, casting him as a failure. While some may say that the events that took place at the Little Big Horn are illustrative of America’s bloody westward expansion, they have in the process unjustly eclipsed Custer’s otherwise extraordinarily life and outstanding career and fall far short of encompassing his incredible service to his country. This biography of thundering cannons, pounding hooves, and stunning successes tells the true story of the origins of one of history’s most dynamic and misunderstood figures. Award-winning historian Thom Hatch reexamines Custer’s early career to rebalance the scales and show why Custer’s epic fall could never have happened without the spectacular rise that made him an American legend.

Visit Thom Hatch's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Saving the Soul of Georgia"

New from the University of Georgia Press: Saving the Soul of Georgia: Donald L. Hollowell and the Struggle for Civil Rights by Maurice C. Daniels.

About the book, from the publisher:

Donald L. Hollowell was Georgia’s chief civil rights attorney during the 1950s and 1960s. In this role he defended African American men accused or convicted of capital crimes in a racially hostile legal system, represented movement activists arrested for their civil rights work, and fought to undermine the laws that maintained state-sanctioned racial discrimination. In Saving the Soul of Georgia, Maurice C. Daniels tells the story of this behind-the-scenes yet highly influential civil rights lawyer who defended the rights of blacks and advanced the cause of social justice in the United States.

Hollowell grew up in Kansas somewhat insulated from the harsh conditions imposed by Jim Crow laws throughout the South. As a young man he served as a Buffalo Soldier in the legendary Tenth Cavalry, but it wasn’t until after he fought in World War II that he determined to become a civil rights attorney. The war was an eye-opener, as Hollowell experienced the cruel discrimination of racist segregationist policies. The irony of defending freedom abroad for the sake of preserving Jim Crow laws at home steeled his resolve to fight for civil rights upon returning from war.

From his legal work in the case of Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter that desegregated the University of Georgia to his defense of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to his collaboration with Thurgood Marshall and his service as the NAACP’s chief counsel in Georgia, Saving the Soul of Georgia explores the intersections of Hollowell’s work with the larger civil rights movement.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Poetry of the First World War"

New from Oxford University Press: Poetry of the First World War: An Anthology edited by Tim Kendall.

About the book, from the publisher:

The First World War produced an extraordinary flowering of poetic talent. Its poets mark the conflict in ways that are both intensely personal and as enduring as any monument. Their lines have come to express the feelings of a nation about the horrors and consequences of war.

This new anthology provides a definitive record of the achievements of the Great War poets and offers a fresh assessment of the work on the centenary of the Great War's outbreak. Focusing on the poets themselves, the book is organized by writer, not theme or chronology. It offers generous selections from the celebrated soldier-poets, including Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Rupert Brooke, whilst also incorporating less well-known writing by civilian and women poets. It also includes two previously unpublished poems by Ivor Gurney.

A general introduction charts the history of the war poets' reception and challenges prevailing myths about the war poets' progress from idealism to bitterness. The work of each poet is prefaced with a biographical account that sets the poems in their historical context.

Although the War has now passed out of living memory, its haunting of our language and culture has not been exorcised. Its poetry survives because it continues to speak to and about us.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Encyclopedia of Early Earth"

New from Little, Brown & Company: The Encyclopedia of Early Earth: A Novel by Isabel Greenberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

A beautifully illustrated book of imaginary fables about Earth's early--and lost--history.

Before our history began, another--now forgotten--civilization thrived. The people who roamed Early Earth were much like us: curious, emotional, funny, ambitious, and vulnerable. In this series of illustrated and linked tales, Isabel Greenberg chronicles the explorations of a young man as he paddles from his home in the North Pole to the South Pole. There, he meets his true love, but their romance is ill-fated. Early Earth's unusual and finicky polarity means the lovers can never touch.

As intricate and richly imagined as the work of Chris Ware, and leavened with a dry wit that rivals Kate Beaton's in Hark! A Vagrant, Isabel Greenberg's debut will be a welcome addition to the thriving graphic novel genre.

Visit Isabel Greenberg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Great Debate"

New from Basic Books: The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left by Yuval Levin.

About the book, from the publisher:

For more than two centuries, our political life has been divided between a party of progress and a party of conservation. In The Great Debate, Yuval Levin explores the origins of the left/right divide by examining the views of the men who best represented each side of that debate at its outset: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. In a groundbreaking exploration of the roots of our political order, Levin shows that American partisanship originated in the debates over the French Revolution, fueled by the fiery rhetoric of these ideological titans.

Levin masterfully shows how Burke's and Paine’s differing views, a reforming conservatism and a restoring progressivism, continue to shape our current political discourse—on issues ranging from abortion to welfare, education, economics, and beyond. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Washington’s often acrimonious rifts, The Great Debate offers a profound examination of what conservatism, liberalism, and the debate between them truly amount to.

Yuval Levin is the editor of National Affairs. He is also the Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a senior editor of The New Atlantis, and a contributing editor to National Review and the Weekly Standard.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Midas Murders"

New from Pegasus: The Midas Murders: An Inspector Van In Novel by Pieter Aspe.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the second novel by the internationally bestselling Pieter Aspe, Inspector Van In races against the clock to thwart a series of terrorist plots

One quiet snow-covered Sunday morning in Bruges, a prominent business executive is found dead in the streets, apparently due to an alcoholic hemorage, but for Inspector Van In, there is a something about the autopsy that does not add up. When he questions the businessman’s friend, a Dutchman, he too is found dead the next morning, burned to death in a house fire.

When there is an explosion in the middle of a popular tourist area in downtown Bruges, Van In strives to find the connection between the three incidents, but no one is coming forward to claim responsibility for this terrorist attack. Just an anonymous letter to the police,
threatening more bombings—unless they cooperate with a series of demands that would undermine the entire city government.

Aided by the spunky and beautiful assistant DA Hannelore Maartens, Inspector
Van In finds himself enmeshed in the case that threatens not just the lives of countless of innocent people, but the heart of the city he loves.

Visit Pieter Aspe's Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue