Editor’s Choice
The Burning Land, by Bernard Cornwell, $25.99.
This action- packed novel continues the saga of warfare for supremacy in Britain, a brutal period when Saxon and Danish swords, battle-axes and treachery ruled the day. Vivid descriptions of merciless battlefield slaughter, rape and destruction are artfully related by a masterful storyteller. Publishers Weekly FICTION
The Wolf At the Door, by Jack Higgins, $26.95.
In bestseller Higgins’s exciting 17th Sean Dillon thriller, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin is behind a plot to kill Dillon and other members of the British prime minister’s private intelligence army as payback for their being such a thorn in his side over the years. Publishers Weekly
The Endless Forest, by Sara Donati, $27.
Say goodbye to Elizabeth Bonner and her brood with this graceful, sweeping conclusion to Donati’s frontier-era Wilderness series (following “Fire Along the Sky”). Any reader will be won over, sooner or later, by Donati’s affection for her tough, complex characters. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back, by Charles Pellegrino, $27.50. Stories of people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 when the atomic weapons detonated, interwoven with accounts of the U.S. pilots who flew the planes and dropped the bombs. The author interviewed survivors, read every relevant text and keeps the many names and places achingly clear in readers’ minds. Enormously painful to read but absolutely essential to do so. Kirkus
Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, by David Aaronovitch, $26.95.
A British journalist examines a dozen conspiracy theories and why they matter. Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? Was Marilyn Monroe murdered? Did the U.S. government bring down the Twin Towers? Conspiracy theories, he writes, are invariably unlikely and implausible, but they often seep into the popular culture and meet real needs. Kirkus
The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again, by Robert W. Chesney and John Nichols, $26.95.
Two respected media authorities spell out the rapid decline of and possible financial solutions for American journalism. In this powerful book on the shrinking American media, the authors accurately explain its crisis. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, by Tiffany Baker, $13.99.
Baker’s quickly paced first novel follows the painfully gloomy journey of plus-sized protagonist Truly, whose life is filled with tragedy, difficulties and sorrow, as well as — eventually — joy and victory. Library Journal
The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq
by Thomas E. Ricks, $17.
Ricks writes as both an analyst and a reporter with lots of real-time access to the chain of command, and his book’s narrative is animated by closely observed descriptions of how the surge worked on the ground, by a savvy knowledge of internal Pentagon politics, and by a keen understanding of the Iraq war’s long-term fallout on already strained American forces. The New York Times
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson, $13.99.
The latest Atkinson mystery finds detective Jackson Brodie back in the English countryside, where he becomes caught up in a missing-persons case that forces old memories and past mistakes to the forefront of his mind. Publishers Weekly
COMING UP
Think Twice, by Lisa Scottoline, $26.99.
Thriller writer Scottoline returns with the tale of twins, one evil, one nice. Or maybe they’re both evil. (March)
