Editor’s Choice
As Husbands Go, by Susan Isaacs, $25.
Best seller Isaacs draws on tony Long Island, gritty New York City and a tabloid-friendly murder for this smart-alecky whodunit/surprisingly sweet love story. Isaacs (“Past Perfect”) brings it all together in this fast and furious ride through wanton greed, fragile relationships and love worth fighting for. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
Rules of Betrayal, by Christopher Reich, $25.95. Reich’s outstanding third thriller featuring Dr. Jonathan Ransom (after “Rules of Vengeance”) finds the courageous surgeon, who no longer works for Doctors Without Borders, in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, where he gets caught in a Taliban raid. Publishers Weekly
Memory Wall: Stories, by Anthony Doerr, $24. Doerr (“Four Seasons in Rome”) moves the reader gracefully from place to place (the stories span four continents), from incident to incident, and from memorable character to memorable character by focusing on small acts that have larger resonances. Kirkus
NONFICTION
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut, by Rob Sheffield, $25.95.
In this tuneful coming-of-age memoir, the glamorous New Wave band Duran Duran presides spiritually over the all-consuming teenage male efforts to comprehend the opposite sex. Music journalist Sheffield chronicles his passage through the 1980s. The result is a funny, poignant browse from a pop-culture evocateur. Library Journal
Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War, by Bruce Henderson, $27.99.
Only a handful of Vietnam War POWs escaped captivity. One of those was Dieter Dengler. Dengler led his fellow prisoners in a daring escape, and he miraculously survived 23 days in the jungle before an inexperienced pilot spotted him frantically signaling from the dense jungle just over the border in North Vietnam. Publishers Weekly
The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Mankind for 500,000 Years, by Sonia Shah, $26.
This fascinating pop-sci account tells us why malaria is one of the world’s greatest scourges, killing a million people every year and debilitating another 300 million, and why we have remained complacent about it. Shah’s is an absorbing account of human ingenuity and progress, and of their heartbreaking limitations. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
Methland: The Death and Life of An American Small Town, by Nick Reding, $15.
A nightmarish story of methamphetamine in rural America. In this richly textured account, Reding traces the astonishing rise of meth use across the Midwest, focusing on Oelwein, an Iowa town (pop. 6,772) that by 2005 had been “destroyed” by the drug. Kirkus
The Monster in the Box, by Ruth Rendell, $15.
In Rendell’s 22nd Inspector Wexford novel, the British police detective confronts a man from his past, Eric Targo, who he suspects is guilty of multiple murders. Rendell easily outdistances most mystery writers with her complex characters and her poetic yet astringent style. Publishers Weekly
Eating the Dinosaur, by Chuck Klosterman, $15.
In the collection’s 13 essays, Klosterman burrows into overexposed but underexplored departments of American pop culture. Declaring himself “post-taste,” he evaluates not the merits of certain phenomena but the ways we “use” them. Kirkus
COMING UP
Trespass, by Rose Tremain, $24.95.
Tremain, winner of the prestigious Orange Prize, is back with a story about disputed territory, sibling love and revenge. (October)
