Editor’sChoice
Dead or Alive, by Tom Clancy, with Grant Blackwood, $28.95.
The best characters from all of Clancy’s previous novels are on the case, including Jack Ryan and his son, Jack Ryan Jr.; the deadly John Clark (Jack senior’s darker half); the Caruso brothers, Dominic and Brian; the ace intelligence analyst Mary Pat Foley; and even Clark’s protege, Ding Chavez. Their quarry is the “Emir,” an Osama bin Laden-like terrorist in hiding after a series of horrific attacks on the United States by his al Qaeda-like network. Los Angeles Times FictionThree Seconds, by Roslund and Hellström, $24.95. Ex-con Piet Hoffmann, who for the past nine years has led a double life as a family man and a police snitch infiltrating the Stockholm drug world, takes on his most dangerous assignment yet in Roslund and Hellström’s thrilling follow-up to “Box 21.” Publishers Weekly
The Poison Tree,
by Erin Kelly, $26.95.
Kelly deftly weaves past and present in her highly satisfying debut novel of psychological suspense, revealing how a convicted murderer came to be released after serving 10 years. Publishers Weekly
NonfictionOverconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet,
by William H. Davidow, $27.95.
The amazing Internet we use for everything from searching for baby names and applying for jobs to health information and buying a house is all tied together. For the same reason it works so well, it can be our downfall. Library Journal
Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery,
by Jennie Erin Smith, $25. In this very disturbing and very entertaining chronicle of reptile smugglers, the collectors and zookeepers who trade with them, and the federal agents who try to catch them, the humans are as devious, dangerous and creepily charming as the cold-blooded creatures they lust after. Publishers Weekly
American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare — The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee,
by Karon Abbott, $26.
Imaginative and engaging, Abbott’s biography of the celebrated stripper, who died in 1970 at age 59, also proves a well-informed look at the evolution of musical theater in the early 20th century. Abbott’s work captures this dizzying, sullying, transformative era in America. Publishers Weekly
Paperback: The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn,
by Alison Weir, $17.
Weir is well equipped to parse the evidence, ferret out the misconceptions and arrive at sturdy hypotheses about what actually befell Anne. Weir’s command of minutiae is impressive, as is her enthusiasm for even the most minor aspects of Anne’s frequently distorted story. The New York Times
The Eyre Affair,
by Jasper Fforde, $15.
This novel might be called “James Bond Meets Harry Potter in the Twilight Zone.” The reader plays “name that literary reference” through most of this zany work, where characters wander around in time from the Crimean War through the present and into the future, and in and out of novels, including “Jane Eyre.” Publishers Weekly
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures,
by Malcolm Gladwell, $16.99.
Gladwell is a writer of many gifts. His nose for the untold back story will have readers repeatedly muttering, “Gee, that’s interesting!” The New York Times Coming upEmily Alone, by Stewart O’Nan, $25.95. Her husband dead and her neighborhood changing, Emily is indeed alone in this follow-up to O’Nan’s best-selling “Wish You Were Here.” Library Journal. (March)
