Best-selling thriller writer James Patterson hit a chord with his young adult novel “The Angel Experiment,” the first in the Maximum Ride series. The second in the series, “School’s Out – Forever,” is hitting book stores. In nonfiction, look for “Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem,” by Richard Kurin, which tells the history of one of the world’s most famous “rocks.” Historian Winston Groom’s World War II tome, “1942: The Year That Tried Men’s Souls,” arrived in paperback. Looking ahead, you can’t do better than David L. Robbins’ World War II novels (“War of the Rats”) and he has another one coming in early August, “The Assassin’s Gallery.”
FICTION
School’s Out – Forever, by James Patterson (Little, Brown, 409 pages, $16.99|Patterson is back with the second of his Maximum Ride young adult novels, this one featuring the bird kids.
Lost in the Garden, by Philip Beard, Viking, 240 pages, $23.95|From the author of “Dear Zoe” comes this comedic story of a suburban man whose life suddenly spins totally out of control. (We used a wrong title for this book in the April 30 books pages.)
Dead Watch, by John Sandford, Putnam, 373 pages, $26|Sandford, who has made a cottage industry of his “Prey” books, centers this political potboiler on the disappearance of a controversial former U.S. senator.
NONFICTION
Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem, by Richard Kurin, HarperCollins, 400 pages, $24.95|The author provides a look at the history of the diamond from Louis XIV to the present, and throws in a history of the diamond trade as well.
A G-Man’s Life: The FBI, Being ‘Deep Throat,’ and the Struggle for Honor in Washington, by Mark Felt and John O’Connor, Public Affairs, 319 pages, $26.95|In this authobiography, Felt talks about his days with the FBI, but has little to say about being Deep Throat, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s unnamed source during the Watergate era.
Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring, by Alexander Rose, Bantam, 370 pages, $26.|As in any war, intelligence is greatly needed, the American Revolution was no different. Rose describes the Culper Ring, a group of men who spied on the British for Gen. George Washington.
PAPERBACKS
1942: The Year That Tried Men’s Souls, by Winston Groom, Grove, 459 pages, $15|The story of the United States’ first year of World War II as the allies suffered a string of early defeats before turning the tide at midyear and changing the course of the war.
Pretty Birds, by Scott Simon, Random House, 368 pages, $13.95|Simon, a reporter for National Public Radio, creates his fiction debut about a young girl in war-torn Sarajevo.
Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism, by Timothy Naftali, Basic Books, 409 pages, $16|The author, a professor at the University of Virginia, takes a look at the history of our nation’s battle against terrorism dating to World War II.
COMING UP
The Assassins Gallery, by David L. Robbins, Bantam, 432 pages, $25, Aug.|Robbins, who specializes in World War II novels, tries his luck at a piece of “what-if” fiction. A beautiful and mysterious assassin is after Franklin Roosevelt and it’s up to an aging history professor and a Secret Service agent to stop her.
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek: China’s Eternal First Lady, by Laura Tyson Li, Atlantic Monthly, 512 pages, $25, Aug.|Raised in a powerful Chinese family and educated at Wellesley College, she became her husband’s most trusted adviser during his long struggle against the communists.
Giraffe, by J.M. Ledgard, Penguin, 326 pages, $24,95 Aug.|Ledgard’s first novel is based on the senseless, willful killing, in a small Czechoslovakian village, of the largest captive herd of giraffes in the world.
