Editor’s Choice
Scared to Live, by Stephen Booth, $25. Two gruesome homicides preoccupy Det. Sgt. Diane Fry and Det. Constable Ben Cooper in Booth’s ambitious seventh police procedural (after “The Dead Place”). Genre fans may find a subplot involving psychotic hallucinations cliched, but few will be able to predict Booth’s twisted conclusion. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
Exiles, by Ron Hansen, $23. In Hansen’s vivid fiction, poet Gerard Manley Hopkins is a promising Oxford graduate who writes verse throughout college, converts to Roman Catholicism in his early 20s and takes church orders. Those acts ostracize him from his family and silence his poetry. Publishers Weekly
The World Before Her, by Deborah Weisgall, $25.Two women in Venice, separated by a century, search for love and identity in the latest from novelist (“Still Point” ) and memoirist (“A Joyful Noise”) Weisgall. Weisgall’s well-researched historical fiction is dense, romantic and provocative. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
Audition: A Memoir, by Barbara Walters, $29.95. Although Walters writes, “It was not in my nature to be courageous, to be the first,” her compulsively readable memoir proves otherwise. Alternating between tales of her personal struggles, professional achievements and insider anecdotes about the celebrities and world leaders she’s interviewed, this mammoth memoir’s energy never flags. Publishers Weekly
Spycraft: The Secret History of The CIA’s Spytechs From Communism to Al-Qaeda,” by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton, $29.95. Today’s CIA is regularly criticized for emphasizing technology at the expense of “human intelligence.” In this history of the agency’s Office of Technical Services, Wallace, its former head, and academic specialist Melton (“Ultimate Spy”) refute the charge with exciting content and slam-bang style.Publishers Weekly
Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin Into a Global Business, by James Harding, $25. The rise and fall of the Sawyer Miller Group, a political consultancy firm, makes for a whirlwind look at international electioneering in this thoroughly engrossing book. Editor at The Times in London, Harding draws on more than 200 interviews to reconstruct the behind-the-scenes history of the Sawyer Miller Group’s meteoric rise to power and influence. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson, $17.95. With the help of many witty, candid letters, Mr. Isaacson offers a wonderfully rounded portrait of the ever-surprising Einstein personality. Equally important is the Einstein myth, and the material on this subject is even more entertaining. The New York Times
Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley, $13.99. This latest satire from Buckley (“Thank You for Smoking”) tackles the looming Social Security crisis, which will be triggered when all the baby boomers begin retiring, an occasion known as Boomsday. The Washington Post
The Great Man, by Kate Christensen, $14.95. After a famous painter’s death, the septuagenarian women who loved and survived him re-examine their lives, in a novel as much about aging as art. A joyful art-world romp from Christensen (“The Epicure’s Lament”) that allows aging women to come across as sexy. Kirkus
COMING UP
Palace Council, by Stephen L. Carter, $26.95. From the author of “The Emperor of Ocean Park” and “New England White” comes another family saga combined with a thriller. (July)
Hunting Bin Laden: How al-Qaeda Is Winning the War on Terror, by Rob Schultheis, $24.95. One of a handful of Western journalists who covered the Russian-Afghan war, Schultheis tells how the seeds of al-Qaeda were planted before most Americans knew such an organization was possible. (August)
