Editor’s Choice
Damaged, by Alex Kava, $24.95.
As Hurricane Isaac bears down on Florida, a grisly discovery off the Gulf Coast plunges FBI profiler Maggie O’Dell into a mystery with far- reaching implications. Maggie (“Black Friday,” “2009”) gets upstaged at every step by the hurricane, but at least it provides her the occasion for an all-too-brief confrontation with the villain who’s pulling the strings. Kirkus FICTION
Cure, Robin Cook, $26.95.
Cook’s latest thriller opens not with a microscopic medical event, as so many of his previous novels have, but with theft at a research lab in Kyoto, Japan. The perpetrator is Ben Corey, a doctor and the founder of a company designed to profit from stem-cell research, and his crime is stealing away Satoshi Machita, one of Kyoto University’s top researchers. Booklist
First Thrills: High-Octane Stories From the Hottest Thriller Writers, edited by Lee Child, $25.95.
Child, the creator of the Jack Reacher series, offers a mixed bag in this anthology of 25 original stories by members of ITW (International Thriller Writers), divided between fledgling authors and established names. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World’s Most Perplexing Cold Cases, by Michael Capuzzo, $26.
Capuzzo reveals the inner workings of the mysterious Vidocq Society, a team of celebrated forensic investigators that regularly meets to tackle unsolved murder cases that have stymied conventional homicide-detection techniques. Publishers Weekly
What We Have: One Family’s Inspiring Story About Love, Loss, and Survival, by Amy Boesky, $26.
The cluster of cancers in Boesky’s family had been identified by 1993, striking the women on her mother’s side in the form of ovarian cancer through the generations, well before the BRCA mutations had been recognized. In this deftly wrought, engaging memoir, Boesky tracks how she navigated her own decisions in light of her family’s health history. Publishers Weekly
The Great Task Remaining: The Third Year of Lincoln’s War, by William Marvel, $35.
Civil War historian Marvel (“Lincoln’s Darkest Year”), a winner of the Lincoln Prize, demonstrates his usual command of archival and published sources in this significantly revisionist account of the Civil War’s third year from the Union perspective. He challenges conventional triumphalism. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon, $16.
“Inherent Vice” is Thomas Pynchon doing Raymond Chandler through a Jim Rockford looking glass, starring Cheech Marin (or maybe Tommy Chong). What could easily be mistaken as a paean to 1960s Southern California is also a sly herald of that era’s end. Los Angeles Times
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, by William Kamkwamba, $14.99.
American readers will have their imaginations challenged by 14-year-old Kamkwamba’s description of life in Malawi, a famine-stricken, landlocked nation in southern Africa. Witnessing his family’s struggle, Kamkwamba’s curiosity leads him to pursue the improbable dream of using “electric wind” (they have no word for windmills) to harness energy for the farm. Publishers Weekly
I, Tina, by Tina Turner with Kurt Loder, $13.99.
Turner’s autobiography is just what you’d expect from the fiery superstar: high-powered, sexy, honest, with apparently nothing held back. Library Journal
COMING UP
An Object of Beauty, by Steve Martin, $26.99.
The actor and author of “Shop Girl” returns with a story of a young woman who takes the New York art scene by storm. Martin describes the end of an era. (November)
