Look for, “Crossing the Lines,” the final installment in Melvyn Bragg’s decidedly British trilogy, while in nonfiction, Lynn Picknett has some interesting theories sure to surprise you in “The Secret History of Lucifer.” David Nevin’s epic Western saga, “Dream West,” is out in paperback. Watch for upcoming titles, like Nuala O’Faolain’s “The Story of Chicago May.”
FICTION
“Crossing the Lines,” by Melvyn Bragg, Arcade, 490 pages, $26|This is final installment in the trilogy (“The Soldier’s Return,” “A Son of War,” centering on young Joe Richardson as he comes of age in the small English town of Wigton.
“Mad Girls in Love,” by Michael Lee West, HarperCollins, 528 pages, $24.95|The author follows her well-received “Crazy Ladies” with a story – sometimes warm, sometimes heartbreaking – of an eccentric Southern family
“Double Tap,” by Steve Martini, Putnam, 490 pages, $26.95|Martini’s hero, Paul Madriani must deal with ballistic evidence of a “double tap,” two bullet wounds tightly grouped in a victim’s head.
NONFICTION
“The Secret History of Lucifer,” by Lynn Picknett, Carroll & Graf, 304 pages, $25|Picknett follows her previous works on Christian heresies by attempting to shed some light on just who Lucifer is. You may be surprised.
“Last of the Cold War Spies: The Life of Michael Straight, the Only American in Britain’s Cambridge Spy Ring,” by Roland Perry, Da Capo, 395 pages, $27.50|Even though Michael Straight said his connection to the Russian spy agency, the KGB, had ended in 1963, the author makes a case for his involvement in many things to come, all under the KGB umbrella.
“Everybody Into the Pool,” by Beth Lisick, Regan, 225 pages, $23.95|The author, once a straightlaced member of society – cheerleader, homecoming queen, athlete – explains in her memoir how she toured with a band of punk rock lesbians and lived in illegal warehouses.
PAPERBACKS
“Dream West,” by David Nevin, Forge, 639 pages, $14.95|A fictionalized account of the travels in the West of explorer James Fremont.
“The Laments,” by George Hagen, Random House, 365 pages, $14.95|A first novel about a family that moves from Africa to England to suburban New Jersey.
“The Best of Edward Abbey,” edited by Abbey, Sierra Club, 432 pages, $16.95|Five years before his death in 1989, Abbey selected what he calls the “best and most representative” of his writing, both fiction and nonfiction.
COMING UP
“The Story of Chicago May,” by Nuala O’Faolain, Riverhead, 320 pages, $24.95, Sept.|The Irish author takes another Irish woman, one who ran away to America only to become a notorious criminal.
“On Beauty,” by Zadie Smith, Penguin, 320 pages, $25.95, Sept.|The author’s third novel is the humorous story of Englishman Howard Belsey, a disgruntled Rembrandt scholar, who lives in New England with his faded-activist wife and their three disparate children.
“Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England,” by Alison Weir, Ballantine, 528 pages, $27.95, Oct.|The author tells the story of one of England’s most vilified queens, who was implicated in the death of her husband, King Edward II.
