After the jump check out what August releases I’m looking forward to reading.
What did I miss? What August books are you looking forward to?
Dark Rain (graphic novel) by Mat Johnson from Vertigo (don’t have)
In the days after Hurricane Katrina, two men who fell through society’s cracks travel to evacuate New Orleans to pull off the bank heist of a lifetime. Up against the clock and eluding armed competitors, the men find themselves in the middle of one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in American history. All around them, the institutions that form the pillars of our society are falling apart. Surrounded by death and misery, the men face a moral challenge greater than any other obstacle they’ve had to overcome. Is it possible to beat the system, even when it lies in ruins? Can they save even one person–or themselves? Or will those institutions come crashing down right on top of them?
Collusion (UK) by Stuart Neville from Harvill Secker (don’t have)
Former paramilitary killer Gerry Fegan wanders New York City, hiding from a past he escaped at terrible cost. But he made a fatal mistake: he spared the life of Bull O’Kane, a ruthless man who will stop at nothing to get his revenge. Too many witnesses survived a bloody battle at his border farm, and now he wants them silenced, whether man, woman or child. O’Kane calls the Traveller, an assassin without pity or remorse, a killer of the purest kind.
Back in Belfast, Detective Inspector Jack Lennon, father of one the witnesses, is caught up in a web of official secrets and lies as he tries to uncover the whereabouts of his daughter. The closer he gets to the truth about the events on O’Kane’s border farm, the more his superiors instruct him to back off.
When Fegan realises he can’t shake off the trail of violence that has followed him across the world, he has no choice but to return to Belfast and confront his past. The Traveller awaits Fegan’s return, ready for the fight of his life.
City of Refuge by Kenzo Kitakata from Random House (don’t have)
He killed 2 gangsters for the woman he loves, for Makiko. The sensation of the murder on Koji’s hands is still fresh. Now he’s running from the police as well as the mob.
Unlike your ordinary hero, Koji kidnaps a boy during his getaway. On his trail is “the Old Dog” Detective Takagi.
The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell from Holt (have)
Zombies have infested a fallen America. A young girl named Temple is on the run. Haunted by her past and pursued by a killer, Temple is surrounded by death and danger, hoping to be set free.
For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She can’t remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her on a personal journey toward redemption. Moving back and forth between the insulated remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks.
The Devil by Ken Bruen from Minotaur (don’t have)
America – the land of opportunity, a place where economic prosperity beckons: but not for PI Jack Taylor, who’s just been refused entry. Disappointed and bitter, he thinks that an encounter with an over-friendly stranger in an airport bar is the least of his problems. Except that this stranger seems to know rather more than he should about Jack. Jack thinks no more of their meeting and resumes his old life in Galway. But when he’s called to investigate a student murder – connected to an elusive Mr K – he remembers the man from the airport. Is the stranger really is who he says he is? With the help of the Jameson, Jack struggles to make sense of it all. After several more murders and too many coincidental encounters, Jack believes he may have met his nemesis. But why has he been chosen? And could he really have taken on the devil himself?
Villain by Shuichi Yoshida from Pantheon (have)
A young insurance saleswoman is found strangled at Mitsuse Pass. Her family and friends are shocked and terrified. The pass—which tunnels through a mountainous region of southern Japan—has an eerie history: a hideout for robbers, murderers, and ghostly creatures lurking at night.
Soon afterward, a young construction worker becomes the primary suspect. As the investigation unfolds, the events leading up to the murder come darkly into focus, revealing a troubled cast of characters: the victim, Yoshino, a woman much too eager for acceptance; the suspect, Yuichi, a car enthusiast misunderstood by everyone around him; the victim’s middle-aged father, a barber disappointed with his life; and the suspect’s aging grandmother, who survived the starvation of postwar Japan only to be tormented by local gangsters. And, finally, there is desperate Mitsuyo, the lonely woman who finds Yuichi online and makes the big mistake of falling for him.
A stunningly dark thriller and a tapestry of noir, Villain is the English-language debut for Shuichi Yoshida, one of Japan’s most acclaimed and accomplished writers.
Caretaker of Lorne Field by Dave Zeltserman from Overlook (have)
Jack Durkin is the ninth generation of Durkins who have weeded Lorne Field for nearly 300 years. Though he and his wife Lydia are miserable and would like nothing more than to leave, Jack must wait until his son has come of age to tend the field on his own. It’s an important job, though no one else seems to realize it. For, if the field is left untended, a horrific monster called an Aukowie will grow-a monster capable of taking over the entirety of America in just two weeks. Or so it is said. . .
Stein Stoned by Hal Ackerman from Tyrus (have)
In the sixties, Harry Stein was the foremost authority on cannabis; writing the book on indoor cultivation, inventing thirteen different hybrids, and planting “Victory Gardens” across America behind police precincts, legislature courtyards, and legendarily in the rose garden of the Nixon White House.
Flash forward to the 20th anniversary of John Lennon’s death and Stein is now employed by a “product liability re-insurance firm” and spending his 50th birthday counting a warehouse full of shampoo bottles. Although not the revolutionary of the future he once imagined himself to be, staying on the path of the straight and narrow allows Stein to keep that which he holds most precious in his life: joint custody of his teenage daughter, Angie. When Stein comes up 1,000 shampoo bottles short in his count and his investigations lead him to stumble upon the body of a brutally murdered supermodel, he is forced down a trail littered with old friends, new enemies, and one final journey into the world he long since left behind
Internecine by David Schow from MacMillian (don’t have)
“Inter-what?” When advertising executive Conrad Maddox returns from a redeye flight and finds a mysterious locker key waiting in his rental car, he discovers a briefcase loaded with guns and money. Several hours later, his entire life tumbles down a rabbit hole when he meets Dandine, owner of the case and former contract assassin for a shadowy organization called Norco, which is now out to nail both of them.
“Internecine” means conflict, mutual destruction, and slaughter—or, as Dandine tells Conrad, they are now inadvertently at play in a field of “terrorism, counter-assassination, military coups, dirty tricks, Watergate, spy vs. spy, murky secret organizations, that sort of thing.” A world in which being innocent can’t save you, the police can’t help you, and your only hope of getting out alive is to risk unheard-of dangers against opponents with nearly unlimited power. To free themselves from the spider web of black ops, murder, madness and betrayal, Dandine and Conrad must delve ever-deeper into the spiraling, dangerous maze that is Norco, where everyone seems to be in on the most lethal of games…except you.
What August releases are you looking forward to?
Alden Bell is Josh Gaylord, Megan Abbott’s husband. Hope you enjoy it. I did.
I think it was a mention on your blog awhile ago that first put it on my radar screen.
I look forward to reading it.