Editor’s Choice
American Taliban, by Pearl Abraham, $25.
Abraham (“The Romance Reader”) creates a plausible series of events leading John Jude Parish from a carefree summer of surfing and skateboarding to taking up arms against the West. The author has taken a complex and volatile subject and brought it to a human scale, without compromising or trivializing the global importance of the issues raised. Library Journal FICTION
The Lake Shore Limited, by Sue Miller, $25.95.
An ambitious exploration of the interaction between choice and random chance in human relationships. The book centers on four characters’ reactions to the play that one of them has scripted about the aftermath of a terrorist attack. Kirkus
The Map of True Places, by Brunonia Barry, $25.95.
A novice psychotherapist finds unsettling parallels between a patient’s suicide and her mother’s history, in Barry’s second (“The Lace Reader”) book. This woman-in- jeopardy thriller retooled with gothic elements — shifting identities, secrets and portents, a deserted cottage and a missing suicide note — manages to transcend its component cliches. A highly readable sophomore effort. Kirkus
NONFICTION
Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery, by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz, $26.
Two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists for The Washington Post document what went wrong during the investigation of the high-profile Chandra Levy case. A well-reported, well-written chronicle of a botched criminal investigation and its disturbing aftermath. Kirkus
The Life of Irène Nemirovsky, by Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Lienhardt, $35.
French biographers Philipponnat and Lienhardt draw on heretofore unexamined archives to present the turbulent, tragic life of Irène Nemirovsky, author of the posthumous best seller “Suite Française.” This book elegantly balances her life and the work, painting a portrait (if at some distance) of a spirited young asthmatic writer, daughter, wife and mother. Publishers Weekly
Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps and the Harvesting of the West, by Mark Wyman, $28.
Wyman details how the railroads were the means by which workers, as well as crops, were moved from place to place and how such “hoboes and tramps” came to occupy the lowest rung of the social order. Political movements such as the “burning of the bindles” in 1918, when workers burned their own blankets to force decent bedding from their employers, are covered here. Library Journal
PAPERBACKS
Nobody Move, by Denis Johnson, $14.
While his previous novel, “Tree of Smoke,” elevated Johnson to a new level of renown, here he seems to take great delight in veering toward the gutter in a fast-paced, dialogue- driven crime novel that explores the baser instincts of some California grifters. Kirkus
Seeds of Terror: How Drugs, Thugs and Crime Are Shaping the Afghan War, by Gretchen Peters, $16.
Peters, a journalist who has covered Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than 10 years, reveals that the Taliban raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually — and finance terrorist cells — by cultivating and exporting poppy to make narcotics. Publishers Weekly
The City and the City, by China Mieville, $15.
Fantasy veteran Mieville (“Iron Council”) adds a murder mystery to the mix in his tale of two fiercely independent East European cities coexisting in the same physical location, the denizens of one willfully imperceptible to the other. Kirkus
COMING UP
Live to Tell, by Lisa Gardner, $26. The lives of three women come together on a suburban Boston night, all centered on the sole survivor of the murder of a family. (August)
