"Who is Conrad Hirst?"

Coming soon from Simon & Schuster: Who Is Conrad Hirst? by Kevin Wignall.

About the book, from the publisher:

Who is Conrad Hirst? Knowing the answer could get you killed. Not knowing could get him killed.

Conrad Hirst is a hired killer working for a German crime boss. Disturbed by the death of his girlfriend ten years earlier and still bearing the scars of post-traumatic stress after serving as a mercenary, he's valued precisely because of how broken he is, by how coldly he kills, by the solitary existence he leads.

But something has happened on Conrad's most recent job that's shattered his equilibrium and left him determined to quit. Fortunately for him, there's a simple way to leave the business and begin life anew: Only four people know who he is and what he's done -- kill those four people, and Conrad is a free man.

A simple plan, but life is never that simple, and as Conrad's scheme unravels, he quickly realizes he isn't the only one doing the killing. With the certainties of his life crumbling around him, he's no longer sure whom he's been working for, or why, or what they want of him now. In fact, he can't even answer the ever-looming and ominous question: Who is Conrad Hirst?

Fast-paced, dark, and disturbing, Kevin Wignall's newest page-turner is the story of a broken young man seeking retribution against those who have used him for their own gain, and of the devastating secret that fuels his anger. It is a story of identity and loss, of missed opportunities and the cruelty of fate.

"Crawfish Mountain"

New from Random House: Crawfish Mountain by Ken Wells.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ken Wells’s highly acclaimed picaresque Catahoula Bayou novels introduced “one of the most compelling voices in fiction of the last decade” (Los Angeles Times). Now Wells is back, writing about his favorite subject–the exotic, beleaguered Louisiana wetlands – in a sharp, rollicking tale of corporate corruption and political shenanigans. The fight over one man’s tract of sacred marsh fronts a deeper story of our place in the environment and our obligations to it.

Justin Pitre’s marsh island, a legacy of his trapper grandfather, is a scenic rival to anything in the Everglades, and he has promised to protect it from all harm. But he hasn’t counted on oil bigwig Tom Huff’s plans to wreck his bayou paradise by ramming a pipeline through it. When cajolery doesn’t sway Justin to sign the land over, Huff turns to darker methods. But Justin and his spirited wife, Grace, prove to be formidable adversaries – and the game is on.

Into the fray comes the charismatic Cajun governor Joe T. Evangeline, who seems more interested in chasing skirts than saving Louisiana’s eroding coast. The Guv, though, is a man on the edge, upended by a midlife crisis and torn between a secret political obligation to Big Oil and the persuasive powers of Julie Galjour, a feisty environmentalist. Julie is clearly out to reform more than the Guv’s ecopolitics, but will his tragicomic Big Oil deals wreck both his career and his chances with the brash and beautiful activist?

As Justin and Grace battle to stop this Big Oil assault, the plot thickens – and the Guv becomes snared in the web. Featuring a gumbo of eccentrics and lowlifes, a kidnapping, a sexy snitch, a toxic-waste-dumping scheme, a boat chase, and a fishing trip gone horribly awry, Crawfish Mountain, spiced with Ken Wells’s keen eye for locale, showcases his adventurous storytelling.

"The Missing"

New from HarperCollins: Sarah Langan's The Missing.

About the book, from the publisher:

A remote and affluent Maine community, Corpus Christi was untouched by the environmental catastrophe that destroyed the neighboring blue-collar town of Bedford. But all that will change in a heartbeat ...

The nightmare is awakened when third-grade schoolteacher Lois Larkin takes the children on a field trip to Bedford. There in the abandoned woods, a small, cruel boy unearths an ancient horror — a contagious plague that transforms its victims into something violent, hungry ... and inhuman.

The long, dark night is just beginning. And all hope must die as the contagion feeds — for the malevolence will not rest until it has devoured every living soul in Corpus Christi ... and beyond.

Visit Sarah Langan's website.

"Identical Strangers"

New from Random House: Identical Strangers by Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein.

About the book, from the official website:

Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn't until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. When Elyse contacted her adoption agency, she was not prepared for the shocking, life-changing news she received: She had an identical twin sister. Elyse was then hit with another bombshell: she and her sister had been separated as infants, and for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins.

Paula Bernstein, a married writer and mother living in New York, also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered a call from the adoption agency one spring afternoon, Paula's life suddenly divided into two starkly different periods: the time before and the time after she learned the truth.

As they reunite and take their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are also left with haunting questions surrounding their origins and their separation. They learn that the study was conducted by a pair of influential psychiatrists associated with a prestigious adoption agency. As they investigate their birth mother's past, Paula and Elyse move closer toward solving the puzzle of their lives.

In alternating voices, Paula and Elyse write with emotional honesty about the immediate intimacy they share as twins and the wide chasm that divides them as two complete strangers. Interweaving eyeopening studies and statistics on twin science into their narrative, they offer an intelligent and heartfelt glimpse into human nature.

Identical Strangers is the amazing story of two women coming to terms with the strange and unbelievable hand fate has dealt them, an account that broadens the definition of family and provides insight into our own DNA and the singularly exceptional imprint it leaves on our lives.

"Citrus: A History"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Pierre Laszlo's Citrus: A History.

About the book, from the publisher:

Walk into your local grocery store and down the produce aisle, and you’ll find a dazzling array of citrus, from navel oranges and clementines to grapefruit and key limes — and sometimes even more exotic fare like the Japanese yuzu, the baboon lemon, or the Ugli fruit, whose thick, wrinkly rind lends it its name. Nearly 100 million tons of citrus are produced globally every year, and in Florida alone, citriculture is a 9 billion dollar industry. But where did these fruits first come from? How did they find their way into the Western world? And how did they become both a culinary and cultural phenomenon?

Pierre Laszlo here traces the spectacular rise and spread of citrus across the globe: from Southeast Asia in 4000 BC through North Africa and the Roman Empire to early modern Spain and Portugal, whose explorers introduced the fruits to the Americas during the 1500s. Blending scientific rigor with personal curiosity, Citrus ransacks over two millennia of world history, exploring the numerous roles that citrus has played in agriculture, horticulture, cooking, nutrition, religion, and art — from the Jewish feast of the Tabernacles through the gardens and courts of Versailles to the canvasses of Vincent van Gogh to the orange groves of southern California and the juicing industry of today.

Tropicana, Goethe, Matisse, Thomas Jefferson, the British Royal Navy — and, of course, citrus, all come into play in this wide-ranging but remarkably pithy book. A dazzling display of erudition, Citrus is popular science at its most compelling, history at its most searching — and a surprising page-turner.

"Sundays with Vlad"

New from Three Rivers Press: Sundays with Vlad: From Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man's Quest to Live in the World of the Undead by Paul Bibeau.

About the book, from the official website:

At eight years old, Paul Bibeau had the footie pj’s scared off of him when his sister sprang out of a crawlspace in the dark wearing plastic fangs. It was the start of a lifelong fascination with vampires. Now a “grownup” journalist, he embarks on a quest to discover the story of how a second-rate Wallachian Prince named Vlad, inaccurately recounted in an odd little 19th century book by some guy named Stoker, became such a pervasive cultural icon.

Bibeau’s search for answers takes us on a rollicking journey that begins in Romania, as — on his honeymoon, no less — we visit the rubble of Vlad’s real castle and examine the mystery of the Count’s missing body, learning why his head might lie at the bottom of a well, smelling vaguely of Honey Smacks.

But those are just the first steps on a ride that traces Drac’s diaspora through the centuries. Soon Bibeau finds himself visiting live-action role playing conventions, learning the virtues of tight leather pants and eye shadow, chatting with a man who ran for governor of Minnesota on an “impalement” platform, and marching in a parade dressed as a bulb of garlic. Along the way, we meet journalists, Dracula experts, Transylvanian hookers, Bela Lugosi’s son … and some folks who actually like to snack on fresh human blood.

With a mixture of reverence, humor, and you-are-there reporting, Sundays with Vlad shines new light on the story of how Dracula has seeped into every corner of mass culture, becoming at once a multi-billion dollar industry, a touchstone for millions of goths and fantasy roleplayers, and. In doing so, it illuminates a fascinating underground society that usually only comes out at night — and shows us that they might not be so different from us after all.

"Marco Polo"

New from Knopf: Laurence Bergreen's Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu.

About the book, from the publisher:

As the most celebrated European to explore Asia, Marco Polo was the original global traveler and the earliest bridge between East and West. A universal icon of adventure and discovery, he has inspired six centuries of popular fascination and spurious mythology. Now, from the acclaimed author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (“Superb ... A first-rate historical page turner” — The New York Times) — comes the first fully authoritative biography of one of the most enchanting figures in world history. In this masterly work, Marco Polo’s incredible odyssey — along the Silk Road and through all the fantastic circumstances of his life — is chronicled in sumptuous and illuminating detail.

We meet him as a callow young man, the scion of a wealthy Venetian merchant family, only seventeen when he sets out in 1271 with his father and uncle on their journey to Asia. We see him gain the confidence of Kublai Khan, the world’s most feared and powerful leader, and watch him become a trusted diplomat and intelligence agent in the ruler’s inner circle. We are privy to his far-flung adventures on behalf of the Khan, living among the Mongols and other tribes, and traveling to magical cities, some far advanced over the West. We learn the customs of the Khan’s court, both erotic and mercantile, and Polo’s uncanny ability to adapt to them. We follow him on his journey back to Venice, laden with riches, the latest inventions, and twenty-four years’ worth of extraordinary tales.

And we see his collaboration with the famed writer Rustichello of Pisa, who immediately saw in Polo the story of a lifetime; enlivened by his genius for observation, Polo’s tales needed little embellishment. Recorded by Rustichello as the two languished as prisoners of war in a Genoese jail, the Travels would explode the notion of non-Europeans as untutored savages and stand as the definitive description of China until the nineteenth century.

Drawing on original sources in more than half a dozen languages, and on his own travels along Polo’s route in China and Mongolia, Bergreen explores the lingering controversies surrounding Polo’s legend, settling age-old questions and testing others for significance. Synthesizing history, biography, and travelogue, this is the timely chronicle of a man who extended the boundaries of human knowledge and imagination. Destined to be the definitive account of its subject for decades to come, Marco Polo takes us on a journey to the limits of history — and beyond.

"The Race"

New from Henry Holt & Co.: The Race by Richard North Patterson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Can an honest man become president? In this timely and provocative novel, a maverick candidate takes on his political enemies and the ruthless machinery of American politics

Corey Grace — a handsome and charismatic Republican senator from Ohio — is plunged by an act of terrorism into a fierce presidential primary battle with the favorite of the party establishment and a magnetic leader of the Christian right. A decorated Gulf War Air Force pilot known for speaking his mind, Grace’s reputation for voting his own conscience rather than the party line — together with his growing romance with Lexie Hart, an African-American movie star — has earned him a reputation as a maverick and an iconoclast. But Grace is still haunted by a tragic mistake buried deep in his past, and now his integrity will be put to the test in this most brutal of political contests, in which nothing in his past or present life is off-limits.

Depicting contemporary power politics at its most ruthless, The Race takes on the most incendiary issues in American culture: racism, terrorism, religious fundamentalism, gay rights, and the rise of media monopolies with their own agenda and lust for power. As the pressure of the campaign intensifies, Grace encounters betrayal, excruciating moral choices, and secrets that can destroy lives. Ultimately, the race leads to a deadlocked party convention where Grace must resolve the conflict between his romance with Lexie and his presidential ambitions — and decide just who and what he is willing to sacrifice.

"Service Included"

New from William Morrow & Co.: Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch.

About the book, from the publisher:

Kitchen Confidential meets Sex and the City in this delicious, behind-the-scenes memoir from the first female captain at one of New York City's most prestigious restaurants

While Phoebe Damrosch was figuring out what to do with her life, she supported herself by working as a waiter. Before long she was a captain at the New York City four-star restaurant Per Se, the culinary creation of master chef Thomas Keller.

Service Included is the story of her experiences there: her obsession with food, her love affair with a sommelier, and her observations of the highly competitive and frenetic world of fine dining.

She also provides the following dining tips:

• Please do not ask your waiter what else he or she does.
• Please do not steal your waiter's pen.
• Please do not say you're allergic when you don't like something.
• Please do not send something back after eating most of it.
• Please do not make faces or gagging noises when hearing the specials — someone else at the table might like to order one of them.

After reading this book, diners will never sit down at a restaurant table the same way again.

Visit Phoebe Damrosch's website.

"The Toothpick"

New from Knopf: The Toothpick: Technology and Culture by Henry Petroski.

About the book, from the publisher:

Like The Pencil, Henry Petroski’s The Toothpick is a celebration of a humble yet elegant device. As old as mankind and as universal as eating, this useful and ubiquitous tool finally gets its due in this wide-ranging and compulsively readable book. Here is the unexpected story of the simplest of implements — whether made of grass, gold, quill, or wood — a story of engineering and design, of culture and class, and a lesson in how to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Petroski takes us back to ancient Rome, where the emperor Nero makes his entrance into a banquet hall with a silver toothpick in his mouth; and to a more recent time in Spain, where a young señorita uses the delicately pointed instrument to protect her virtue from someone trying to steal a kiss. He introduces us to Charles Forster, a nineteenth-century Bostonian and father of the American toothpick industry, who hires Harvard students to demand toothpicks in area restaurants — thereby making their availability in eating establishments as expected as condiments.

And Petroski takes us inside the surprisingly secretive toothpick-manufacturing industry, in which one small town’s factories can turn out 200 million wooden toothpicks a day using methods that, except for computer controls, haven’t changed much in almost 150 years. He also explores a treasure trove of the toothpick’s unintended uses and perils, from sandwiches to martinis and beyond.

With an engineer’s eye for detail and a poet’s flair for language, Petroski has earned his reputation as a writer who explains our world — from the tallest buildings to the lowliest toothpick — to us.