EDITOR’S CHOICE
The Water’s Lovely by Ruth Rendell, $25.95
This stand-alone story, written apart from (Rendell’s) Chief Inspector Wexford series, is one of her most gleefully energetic efforts. And its powers of description and characterization place it far beyond the limits of a genre novel. | The New York Times
FICTION
Consumption by Kevin Patterson, $25 | In sharp and sometimes mesmerizing language, Patterson seamlessly works murder, sex and intrigue into the mix and offers a terrific cast that makes Arctic life, and the ties of kin, palpable. | Publishers Weekly
Buried by Mark Billingham, $25.95 | This superb suspense thriller cements Billingham’s place along with such American heavyweights as Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane. | Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil War’s Cruelest Mission by Alan Axelrod, $26.95 | Civil War specialist Axelrod (“The War Between the Spies,” et al.) offers a concise, readable and creditable recounting of the Battle of the Crater, which U.S. Grant famously termed a “stupendous failure.” | Publishers Weekly
High Tea in Mosul: The Englishwomen of Iraq by Lynne O’Donnell, $21.95 | O’Donnell’s emotional narrative examines Iraqi life in its entirety and shows that there is more to the country than violence and war. | Publishers Weekly
Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea by Richard Kluger, $35 | (“Seizing Destiny”) emphasizes the rapacity of Americans who, through daring, cunning, double-dealing and sometimes pitiless force, took possession of nearly 4 million square miles within three centuries. | Washington Post
PAPERBACKS
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, $14 | Gillian Flynn, in her debut novel, “Sharp Objects,” offers up a literary thriller that’s a doozy of a take on the theme of family dysfunction. And she does it with wit and grit, a sort of Hitchcock visits Stephen King. | The Denver Post
A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth Century New York by Timothy J. Gilfoyle, $16.95 | Gilfoyle uses the unpublished autobiography of George Appo – pickpocket, jailbird, conman, stage actor – to illuminate Gotham’s dark criminal subculture of a century ago. | Kirkus
Rescue Missions: Stories by Frederick Busch, $14.95 | Disappointment, regret, anger, hope, and passion quicken Busch’s parables of the ragged ways that people fall in and out of love. Busch’s quirky yet dazzling prose is worth the price of admission. | Library Journal
COMING UP
OCTOBER
The Race by Richard North Patterson, $26 | Another topical outing from the Patterson. This time it’s a scary look at American power politics when it comes to electing a president.
OCTOBER
Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis, $39.95 | Michaelis (“N.C. Wyeth: A Biography”), given access to family, friends and personal papers, reveals the full extent of Schulz’s well-known depression, tracing its origins in his Minnesota childhood. | Publishers Weekly
DECEMBER
T Is for Trespass by Sue Grafton, $26.95 | Another mystery from Grafton, this one involving identity theft, abuse of the elderly, betrayal of trust and a breakdown in the institutions charged with taking care of the infirm.
