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Edward Wozny is an ambitious young investment banker with two weeks to kill until he’s transferred from New York City to England to fill a coveted position in the bank’s London headquarters. Before he leaves, however, the powerful firm has one last request: he must help one of the company’s most important clients, the Duke and Duchess of Bowmry, organize a personal library of rare books. At first, Edward is annoyed at being shanghaied into performing such a tedious task on his vacation, but once he arrives at the clients’ expensive Manhattan digs, his resentment turns to intrigue. Hidden in the attic of the vine-covered limestone townhouse are unopened crates of ancient books some of which date from before the 16th century. Edward is told that the duchess wants him to covertly look for a legendary medieval codex authored by a minor literary figure, Gervace of Langford. Edward’s quest for the mysterious codex soon turns obsessive, and his impending job in London is almost forgotten as he becomes entangled in the codex’s shadowy purpose as well as the intrigue surrounding the tumultuous relationship between the duke and duchess. While searching for the codex in a rare book repository, Edward meets and enlists the help of Margaret Napier, a Columbia grad student who is a “cross between Stephen Hawking and Nancy Drew.” But is it mere coincidence that her dissertation is on the works of Gervace of Langford? As Edward’s obsession with the codex grows, so does his fixation with a highly addictive interactive computer game. When he finds shocking parallels between the game and secrets associated with the codex, his mundane investment banker existence is turned upside down. Lev Grossman, a book critic for Time magazine, has made the cerebral, stylish Codex one of those rare novels that transcend categorization: it is part mystery, part thriller, part romance and part literary history. No matter where this book is eventually shelved, it should and undoubtedly will be sought out by discerning readers everywhere. Paul Goat Allen is a freelance editor and writer in Syracuse, New York.

Edward Wozny is an ambitious young investment banker with two weeks to kill until he's transferred from New York City to England to fill a coveted position in the bank's London headquarters. Before he leaves, however, the powerful firm has one last request: he must…
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Surely one of the more untraditional collections of short stories published in recent memory, A Kudzu Christmas, is a beguiling set of 12 supremely spooky Southern mysteries. In the unsettling Swimming Without Annette, writer Alix Strauss creates a story of vigilantism readers won’t soon forget. After her lover is killed in the alley outside a local diner, Karen stakes out the place. While she waits and watches and eats countless tuna melts, Karen reminisces about Christmases past, including the one when her lover gives her a glass star. Suffice it to say that beautiful star becomes a weapon by the end of the story. In Yes, Ginny, by Suzanne Hudson, a young girl whose good-for-nothing stepfather does little but drink and berate is given a little holiday wish of her own when he suddenly disappears on Christmas morning. Chilly and surreal, A Kudzu Christmas offers a grown-up reprieve from all things Santa.

Amy Scribner is celebrating the holidays with her family in Olympia, Washington.

Surely one of the more untraditional collections of short stories published in recent memory, A Kudzu Christmas, is a beguiling set of 12 supremely spooky Southern mysteries. In the unsettling Swimming Without Annette, writer Alix Strauss creates a story of vigilantism readers won't soon forget.…
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Mario Delvecchio is one of the world’s most respected art restorers. His current project is Bellini’s altarpiece in the Church of San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice. But when a bomb goes off at the office of Wartime Claims and Inquiries in Vienna, Mario assumes his real name, Gabriel Allon, and his part-time job assassin for Israeli intelligence.

This third volume of Daniel Silva’s trilogy dealing with the unfinished business of the Holocaust takes us from the streets of Vienna to the innermost secrets of the Vatican to Argentina and back. The first book in this cycle, The English Assassin, dealt with Nazi art looting and the collaboration of the Swiss banking system. The second book, The Confessor, examined the role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and the silence of Pope Pius XII. This third book is based, like its predecessors, on actual events. Is it possible that even today a Nazi war criminal is living in Vienna? What does he know about Aktion 1005, the attempt to destroy all evidence of the Holocaust? A Death in Vienna gives a chilling view of both the horrors of war and the politics of Austria. What is possible in today’s world when the secrets of the past cannot be contained? The sins of the fathers can control the secrets of power and politics. The search for the truth leads Gabriel to his mother’s wartime experience at the Birkenau concentration camp, and he experiences her life through her own testimony found at Yad Vashm, the world’s foremost center for Holocaust research and documentation in Israel. As he discovers the secrets of his family’s past, other truths unfold. What do the CIA and Russian intelligence have to do with the Vienna bombing? Is there ever justification for protecting a murderer? With Silva, there are often more questions than answers, but there is always a relentless search for the truth. Derrick Norman is voracious reader who spent many years in publishing and enjoys a good game of golf.

Mario Delvecchio is one of the world's most respected art restorers. His current project is Bellini's altarpiece in the Church of San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice. But when a bomb goes off at the office of Wartime Claims and Inquiries in Vienna, Mario assumes his…
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Edgar Allan Poe arguably one of America’s most influential writers makes an appearance in Andrew Taylor’s literary thriller An Unpardonable Crime. Although Poe, a precocious 10-year-old living with his foster family in London in 1819, is very much a peripheral figure in Taylor’s grisly tale of treachery and murder, he is the spindle on which the numerous plots and subplots revolve. The story is narrated by Thomas Shield, Edgar Allan’s teacher at the Reverend Bransby’s Manor House School. A disgraced veteran of the battle of Waterloo who was recently hospitalized for mental instability, Shield is a highly intelligent and hopelessly romantic man struggling to find his place in an England of extremes ranging from the lavish mansions of Mayfair to the crumbling tenements of St. Giles and Seven Dials. While at the school, Shield becomes involved with two young students who have befriended each other: Charles Frant, the overly sheltered son of a prominent banker, and Edgar Allan, the foster son of an American businessman managing his interests in London. In a series of gruesome plot twists that would make Poe himself proud an audacious deathbed robbery, a brutal murder, an incarceration in a coffin, the discovery of a rotting human fingertip and a French-speaking parrot squawking enigmatic warnings Shield slowly loses control of his own destiny as he is drawn into a dangerous game of subterfuge and duplicity.

Aside from the rich descriptions (the use of fog as metaphor throughout is brilliant), the most notable aspect of this novel is Taylor’s masterful use of some of Poe’s most renowned themes, including victimization, extreme states of existence, mysterious presences and mourning for the dead. A delectably dark blend of mystery, gothic horror, romance and literary history, An Unpardonable Crime will leave readers captivated until the very end a fittingly macabre tribute to the master of the macabre.

Edgar Allan Poe arguably one of America's most influential writers makes an appearance in Andrew Taylor's literary thriller An Unpardonable Crime. Although Poe, a precocious 10-year-old living with his foster family in London in 1819, is very much a peripheral figure in Taylor's grisly…
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With the third entry of the Women’s Murder Club series, James Patterson and co-author Andrew Gross don’t even wait until the opening chapter to get the ball rolling. There, shining out from the dust jacket, is the warning, “One of James Patterson’s best-loved heroines is about to die.” This tantalizing but gratuitous revelation sets the pace for the book, which reads like a package of rapidly exploding firecrackers. But it’s bombs not firecrackers that are blowing people up in San Francisco as the city prepares to host a G-8 meeting of the world’s top finance ministers.

As in the two earlier books in the series 1st To Die and 2nd Chance the principal characters here are San Francisco Police Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer (who serves both as chief investigator and narrator), reporter Cindy Thomas, assistant district attorney Jill Bernhardt and medical examiner Claire Washburn. Each has a life, but they are most alive when they involve themselves in each other’s problems and triumphs.

Soon after Boxer is almost blown away in a townhouse explosion, it becomes clear that she is up against homegrown terrorists who are intent on slowing the juggernaut of global capitalism. At least that’s what they boast in the notes they leave behind with their victims and in the carefully masked e-mails they send to Thomas at her newspaper. Adding to Boxer’s burdens is her discovery that Bernhardt’s husband is abusing her. Then there’s the sticky matter of her growing attraction to Joe Molinari, who’s been sent in from Washington by the Department of Homeland Security to help out with the case.

Boxer’s sleuthing takes her across the bay to “The People’s Republic of Berkeley,” where she begins to unearth a cell led by radical holdovers from the1960s. While their rhetoric is dated, their weapons are state of the art: C-4 explosives ignited by cell phone, intimidation by internet and in an eerie anticipation of recent headlines the lavish use of the deadly poison ricin. In typical Patterson style, the chapters are so brief and filled with action that they flash by like movie scenes.

In an earlier interview with BookPage, Patterson brushed aside discussions of his prolific output this is his 25th book and his massive sales. “I think one of the most interesting things is the diversity of these books,” he said, “and the fact that on a pure readership level, a pure, spellbinding, can’t-put-it-down level, that they’re pretty successful. Forget about sales. They just move along real well.” This is Patterson’s third co-authorship with Gross, who made his debut with 2nd Chance and then went on to collaborate on the historical thriller, The Jester. Patterson’s reputation extends beyond writing a lot of fast-paced books to overseeing the ways they’re promoted and marketed. So the teasing dust jacket tip-off that a major character is “about to die” has his fingerprints all over it. “I involve myself in a fair amount of [planning],” he told BookPage. “We kind of like to sit in a room and go, ‘Do we like the cover?’ ‘Do we like the book?’ ‘Do we like the [proposed] tour?’ I think that’s a healthy thing to do. It works out very well.” It certainly works out well for 3rd Degree. By now the ladies are like old friends, whose quirks we cherish and whose troubles immediately become our own.

 

With the third entry of the Women's Murder Club series, James Patterson and co-author Andrew Gross don't even wait until the opening chapter to get the ball rolling. There, shining out from the dust jacket, is the warning, "One of James Patterson's best-loved heroines…

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When fire damages the new Globe Theatre in London and disrupts rehearsals for Hamlet, young American director Kate Shelton finds herself enmeshed in a malignant drama of staggering proportions in Jennifer Lee Carrell's first novel, Interred with Their Bones. Just prior to the fire, Shakespearean scholar Rosalind Howard had given Kate an enigmatic gift in a small box, and she included this cryptic admonition: If you open it, you must follow where it leads. Then Rosalind is brutally murdered precisely in the manner of Hamlet's father. As the police look into Rosalind's bizarre death, Kate realizes that the box's contents a Victorian mourning brooch may be the most important bit of evidence. Following Rosalind's injunction, Kate takes it upon herself to find her friend's killer.

Kate is immediately confronted by a series of ever-increasing dangers, but she soon discovers to her surprise that she is not alone in her quest for the truth. Ben Pearl, Rosalind's strikingly good-looking nephew, turns up in the nick of time and becomes an indispensable friend and ally.

Piecing together an elaborate puzzle, Kate and Ben travel around the world to Harvard and the American southwest in pursuit of a tantalizing series of literary clues hidden in the words of Shakespeare, Cervantes, the Holy Bible and ciphered texts that will lead them to the murderer and unlock one of history's greatest literary secrets. Taking her title from Mark Antony's ironic eulogy in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Carrell, the author of the much-praised nonfiction book The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox, has proven that she knows how to write a fast-paced, highly entertaining novel. Erudite and complex, Interred with Their Bones draws readers into an allusive labyrinth embellished with the words and plots from the plays of the upstart Crow, as one contemporary dubbed the Bard. Here is a novel that will appeal to mystery-thriller fans as well as Shakespeare aficionados.

Tim Davis teaches literature at the University of West Florida.

When fire damages the new Globe Theatre in London and disrupts rehearsals for Hamlet, young American director Kate Shelton finds herself enmeshed in a malignant drama of staggering proportions in Jennifer Lee Carrell's first novel, Interred with Their Bones. Just prior to the fire, Shakespearean…

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Unleash with Category 5 fury a modern master of mood and metaphor. Turn him loose on a city in turmoil. Let him speak with the righteous indignation of Dave Robicheaux, the recovering alcoholic, Cajun detective who struggles for justice whether within the system or outside it. Then settle in for a heck of a read: James Lee Burke's The Tin Roof Blowdown.

In the whirling winds of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, a junkie priest takes a bus into the 9th Ward. A white father and daughter struggle to cope after her gang rape. Across the street, a crime boss a florist by day has fled to higher ground. And four young black men on the prowl in a stolen boat hit the jackpot in the florist's empty house. As they flee, gunfire leaves two dead, one paralyzed and the fourth Bertrand Melancon terrified and on the run. New Iberia Sheriff's deputy Robicheaux is lent to New Orleans to help out, where he investigates the shooting and the theft. As Dave gets closer to learning what Melancon found in the florist's home, and to what happened in the flooded streets, he finds himself and his family the target of forces as destructive and unforgiving as the wind and water.

The Tin Roof Blowdown is Burke's 16th Dave Robicheaux novel. Twice an Edgar Award winner, once a Pulitzer Prize nominee, Burke is justifiably admired for his rich prose and for the character of Robicheaux, a complex, compassionate man always striving to understand human motivation. Everything readers love in Burke's novels is intensified by the storm, and by Robicheaux's barely controlled rage at the government's inability to take care of those most in need in a vibrant old city. Deft shifts of points of view allow for a more fully fleshed story than Robicheaux alone could tell.

This is a powerful portrayal of the human cost of a storm that will long reverberate, and that blew the roof off the illusion of equality in America. Like Robicheaux, readers will be pondering the true nature of good and evil long after the last page.

Leslie Budewitz writes from northwest Montana.

Unleash with Category 5 fury a modern master of mood and metaphor. Turn him loose on a city in turmoil. Let him speak with the righteous indignation of Dave Robicheaux, the recovering alcoholic, Cajun detective who struggles for justice whether within the system or outside…

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If ever the adage "things aren’t always what they seem" applied to a novel, it would be to The Lake of Dead Languages. In her debut novel, Carol Goodman spins a tale that keeps the reader guessing on multiple fronts. The novel begins in the present day, when protagonist Jane Hudson returns to her alma mater, the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks, to teach Latin. Newly divorced, Jane seems to have fled to Heart Lake to take refuge and re-evaluate her life. But the reader quickly discovers she has a past to reconcile when a page from her teenage journal reappears after more than two decades . . . and one of her students tries to kill herself.

Part two of the novel flashes back to Jane’s teenage years. Here the reader has a chance to get to know the younger Jane, a lonely girl who lives on the other side of the river ("in Corinth, it’s the river and not the train tracks that divide the haves from the have-nots"). Her mother encourages her to take Latin for the sole purpose of meeting, and hopefully befriending, the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. And it is in Latin class that Jane is befriended by siblings Matt and Lucy Toller two of the three teenagers who later commit suicide during Jane’s senior year at Heart Lake School.

The reader looks on as Jane steps through the veil of young adulthood when she loses her virginity and faces the death of a parent. But the trials of growing up are further complicated as the circumstances of the trio of tragic deaths are slowly unraveled. The reader begins to wonder if the student deaths were really suicide and comes to realize that Jane may be the only one who can answer that question.

While avid mystery readers may find they can figure out "whodunit" before the final page of most novels, The Lake of Dead Languages holds its secrets to the end. If it weren’t for Goodman’s keen ability to weave a mystery of multiple layers, each revealed with exquisite timing, her picturesque prose would be reason enough to keep the reader turning the pages.

Amy Rauch Neilson is a writer and editor in Belleville, Michigan.

 

If ever the adage "things aren't always what they seem" applied to a novel, it would be to The Lake of Dead Languages. In her debut novel, Carol Goodman spins a tale that keeps the reader guessing on multiple fronts. The novel begins in…

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John Lawton’s striking new suspense novel, Bluffing Mr. Churchill, is set in the period between the height of the London Blitz and America’s entry into World War II. In this prequel to Lawton’s Inspector Troy series, an Austrian who has insinuated himself into the upper echelons of the Nazi SS and has spied first for Poland and then for the United States is now on the run. The narration rotates among several points of view those of the spy, his Nazi pursuers, his American handler, several British agents and the British policeman who ultimately must make sense of what has occurred. As the main action is playing out, Nazi officer Rudolph Hess lands a plane in Scotland on a mysterious true-life mission that has never been fully explained.

The author also brings other historical figures such as Reinhard Heydrich, a brutal SS chief, to life, and grants memorable cameos to a number of famous men and women who personified the times. One of the most chilling scenes involves Heydrich’s examination of the hands of a corpse that the fleeing spy has tried to pass off as his own. A surgeon has neatly removed the hands from the corpse and Heydrich’s assistant has a great deal of trouble deciding how to carry them into the room. He settles on a silver desert tray, and the fastidious Heydrich examines them very casually as if it were all part of a perfectly normal day. Another of the cameos is made by H.G. Wells, and in a comment that illustrates Lawton’s deftness in handling a broad range of tones, Wells is described as “having endured as much of his own silence as he could manage in the course of a single meal.” Freddie Troy is kept mostly on the sidelines in this novel, but all of the characters are vividly sketched. The exposition of their backgrounds is pointed and efficient, and their voices are differentiated enough for the reader to keep them straight but not so much that they seem caricatured. Overall, Bluffing Mr. Churchill is a historically fascinating story that is masterfully told. Martin Kich is an English professor at Wright State University.

John Lawton's striking new suspense novel, Bluffing Mr. Churchill, is set in the period between the height of the London Blitz and America's entry into World War II. In this prequel to Lawton's Inspector Troy series, an Austrian who has insinuated himself into the upper…
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In Polar, Deputy Ray Tatum has two mysteries to solve: the disappearance of Angela Dunn, a wordless child who wanders into the woods, never to be seen again by her parents, and the sudden prophetic powers of the formerly worthless Clayton, a shiftless town institution best known for his preference for the porn channel. One mystery will be solved, while the other remains tantalizingly out of reach.

But these strong narrative engines are not what really drives Polar, T. R. Pearson’s latest novel. What Pearson seeks to do, instead, is capture the feel of small town life and the myriad personalities that give it texture, without resorting to the usual platitudes that pretend such towns have more than their share of unspoiled innocence. In other words, Pearson’s small-town Virginia is no Mayberry. Nor is it inhabited by the Cleavers.

The novelist thinks nothing of interrupting the flow of his narrative to give the life story of a minor character who may never appear in the book again. This doesn’t constitute an aesthetic flaw. After all, the true, unvarnished motivations of man are what Polar is really all about.

It’s about characters like Ivy Vaughn, a woman who remains in such a high dudgeon she never pays attention to the road and leaves a trail of dead animals in her wake. It’s also about Mrs. Dunn, who turns the loss of her daughter and husband into profit, launching a career as a radio celebrity whose collective losses make her an authority on flagging American morals.

And, of course, there is Clayton, whose television satellite is arced over his garage at an angle that betrays, for all to observe, his addiction to televised erotica. Clayton seems an unlikely candidate to be blessed with the gift of second sight. But fate, which has a definite sense of humor in a T.R. Pearson novel, chooses Clayton to become a small-time, small-town prophet.

Only Deputy Tatum is able to turn Clayton’s obscure prognostications to good purpose in his search for Angela. Motivated by the haunting memory of his own dead child, Ray pursues Angela’s story long after the media, the FBI and even the girl’s parents have given her up for lost. Using the prism of Tatum’s grief, Pearson critiques small-town pretensions and, by extension, America’s chronic hypocrisies.

In Polar, Deputy Ray Tatum has two mysteries to solve: the disappearance of Angela Dunn, a wordless child who wanders into the woods, never to be seen again by her parents, and the sudden prophetic powers of the formerly worthless Clayton, a shiftless town institution…

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The website of The Lost Symbol offers this teaser: “9.15.09: All Will Be Revealed.” Until that date, we can only rely on the publisher to keep us informed with hints about Dan Brown’s long-anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, in the form of “cryptic tweets” and Facebook messages.

Virtually no one knows the specifics of The Lost Symbol—the team at Random House’s Doubleday imprint is relying on Brown’s already-loyal following, rather than advance praise from reviewers, to create buzz for the new thriller. Thus, the books are on lockdown until September 15. With an initial print run of 5 million copies, the book will represent the largest first printing in the history of Random House—and the company hopes it will be a publishing sensation, especially after several years of delayed release dates. Considering that The Da Vinci Code has sold 81 million copies worldwide, and its movie counterpart made $750 million, the odds are good that The Lost Symbol will land a long-term spot at the top of bestseller lists.

A little guesswork à la symbologist Robert Langdon can give us some clues as to the plot of The Lost Symbol, promised by Sonny Mehta, Editor-in-Chief of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, to be “a brilliant and compelling thriller.”

From the publisher, we know that the novel will portray 12 hours of Langdon’s life in Washington, D.C., and the plot will revolve around the Freemasons, an organization that Brown has called the “oldest fraternity in history.”

We also know that Brown’s original title for the book was “The Solomon Key.” The Key of Solomon is an important symbol in Freemason rituals. For those who want to learn more before The Lost Symbol arrives in bookstores, check out Cracking the Freemason’s Code : The Truth about Solomon’s Key and the Brotherhood by Robert D.L. Cooper, a Scottish Freemason and historian who provides an inside look at this secretive organization.

The “cryptic tweets” from the Twitter page of The Lost Symbol are nothing if not  . . .  cryptic. These short messages include questions and puzzling clues. Examples include the query “How could a precious stone burn 20 years of Isaac’s research?” and a link to an article about Robert Hanssen, a double agent who spied on the FBI for the Soviet Union and Russia. One tweet promised to reveal Langdon’s next adversary once Dan Brown’s Facebook page reaches 100,000 fans. (At press time, there were just over 60,000.)

The Facebook page for The Lost Symbol offers equally baffling tidbits, such as a link to an article about ancient pyramids with the comment that “the pyramid is a highly celebrated symbol in Freemasonry.”

And then there is the novel’s cover. The American version features the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., lit up against the background of a large red wax seal. Embedded in the wax is an unidentifiable symbol. The U.K. and Australian cover differs slightly in that the Capitol appears below a Masonic key. There have been many theories tying the Freemasons to our nation’s capital—including speculation that the streets of Washington, D.C., were planned to physically mirror important Masonic symbols. It’s also interesting to note that one of the most famous Freemasons is none other than George Washington, for whom the capital city is named.

Stephen Rubin, a former president of Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, has implied that there is special significance behind the publication date of The Lost Symbol: “Dan Brown has a very specific release date for the publication of his new book, and when the book is published, his readers will see why.”

The Key of Solomon, pyramids, important dates and an FBI spy—all in a 12-hour period of time? All in a 528-page novel? Until September 15, we can only guess whether these clues make direct references to events in the novel, or simply allude to greater themes. According to Jason Kaufman, Brown’s editor, the novel will show us “an unseen world of mysticism, secret societies and hidden locations, with a stunning twist that long predates America.”

Mehta insists that Brown’s novel is “well worth the wait.” In the meantime, we can download The Lost Symbol’s countdown widget online, re-read The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons and brush up on Freemason conspiracy theories. And get lots of sleep. For millions of booklovers, the evening of Tuesday, September 15, is shaping up to be an all-nighter.  

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All your questions answered in the review of The Lost Symbol.

The website of The Lost Symbol offers this teaser: “9.15.09: All Will Be Revealed.” Until that date, we can only rely on the publisher to keep us informed with hints about Dan Brown’s long-anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, in the form of “cryptic…

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Journalist Stewart Dubinsky, a character who’s appeared in several of Scott Turow’s legal thrillers, wants to write a book. Instead, he finds a story he’d never imagined.

When his father, David Dubin, dies, Stewart discovers a packet of David’s wartime letters to his fiancŽe with a note referring to his court-martial. Stewart had always known his father served as an Army lawyer in World War II, meeting his mother in a concentration camp, but the fiancŽe and the court-martial weren’t part of that story. As Stewart investigates, he discovers that the lives his parents claimed to have lived were far less dramatic, and far less heroic, than the truth.

Still a working lawyer, Turow is known for intelligent, gripping thrillers that lead readers into the shadowy corners of life. In Ordinary Heroes, he dives into a different world: an Army lawyer’s search for a truant OSS officer during the darkest days of the war in Europe, and a son’s search for the truth about his parents.

David Dubin’s former lawyer, now an elderly retired judge, gives Stewart his father’s written account of his journey from loyal lieutenant to infantry captain to accused man. David is assigned to investigate and arrest Maj. Robert Martin, who pulled off a series of raids that helped turn the Allies’ luck. But Martin’s clash with authority brands him as insubordinate and worse. David participates in a raid with Martin’s crew including an intriguing Polish girl, Gita. Following Martin’s trail with his intrepid sergeant, David parachutes into ever-changing territory, then leads a weary band of survivors in the Battle of the Bulge. Still uncertain whether he’s chasing a traitor or a hero, David pursues Martin into Germany, to the camp where he once again meets Gita.

A masterful, passionate storyteller who handles his latest literary challenge with assurance, Turow pays homage in Ordinary Heroes to all who ever dared pursue love or justice amid the horrors of war. Leslie Budewitz practices law and writes in northwest Montana.

Journalist Stewart Dubinsky, a character who's appeared in several of Scott Turow's legal thrillers, wants to write a book. Instead, he finds a story he'd never imagined.

When his father, David Dubin, dies, Stewart discovers a packet of David's wartime letters to his…
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For more than a generation, British author John Le CarrŽ has written spy novels that both define and transcend the genre. His latest book, Absolute Friends, is his best work in years, another impassioned portrayal of the forces that drive global politics. Ted Mundy is a thistledown of a man, blown wherever fate and his own whims take him. His resume is endless: ex-’60s radical, failed writer, businessman, schoolteacher, spy. It is this last role that comes back to haunt him with the reappearance of his old friend and fellow traveler, Sasha, who offers financial security and a chance to fight the good fight once again. A mysterious benefactor wants to finance a school that will counter what he sees as propaganda supporting the war in Iraq. Mundy eventually realizes, however, that some things can look too good to be true. Absolute Friends is an absolute page-turner, yet in some ways, plot is superfluous to this novel. We are drawn into the plot because we care about the characters, from the simply drawn minor actors to the meticulously assembled protagonist. Absolute Friends is as much an examination of the human soul as it is an intriguing commentary on 21st century conflicts.

 

For more than a generation, British author John Le CarrŽ has written spy novels that both define and transcend the genre. His latest book, Absolute Friends, is his best work in years, another impassioned portrayal of the forces that drive global politics. Ted Mundy…

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