The Counterfeit Agent

Alex Berenson (Get this book)
In this newest John Wells novel from Berenson, the superagent tries to foil a plot to force the U.S. into a war with Iran. John Wells' girlfriend responded to his marriage proposal with a counteroffer: Stop doing work for the CIA, or it's over. Unfortunately for Wells' love life, Vinny Duto--who recently traded his post as CIA director for a seat in the Senate--chooses that moment to call and ask for a meeting. He's gotten a tip from a former associate that someone--allegedly a CIA case officer--is out to assassinate a station chief. Another well-crafted entry in Berenson's excellent John Wells series.--Kirkus

Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment

Robert Ferguson (Get this book)
An eye-opening report about how the United States, with just 5 percent of the world's population, holds 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. Ferguson charges that American prisons have "become an evil for all concerned." Federal, state and local governments spend $80 billion per year on a system that provides jobs for one out of nine state employees. In order to promote the system's growth, private prison companies, as well as the unions representing guards, have become a self-serving lobby wielding their clout over political decision-makers. An important wake-up call about an emerging crisis that threatens to become a human rights scandal of global proportions.--Kirkus

Nantucket Sawbuck: A Henry Kennis Mystery

Steven Axelrod (Get this book)
A ruthless entrepreneur cheats everyone but death. Preston Lomax is proud of the number of people who'd like him dead. He's been unfaithful to his wife with all three of her sisters and many of her friends, bugged his sons' apartments, forced his daughter Kathleen to play "Guess My Mood" all her life, used his money to barge into Nantucket society, and conspired with a local developer to break ground for a shopping mall on former conservation land. Although shifts in chronology and point of view further complicate an already dense plot, Axelrod has a gift for characterization and a strong lead in Kennis. Nantucketers might bristle at the cynical portrait of their home, but his mystery debut gives the island as much personality as its varied inhabitants.--Kirkus

The Monkey's Voyage: How Improbable Journeys Shaped the History of Life

Alan de Queiroz (Get this book)
In his entertaining and enlightening book, evolutionary biologist de Queiroz demonstrates that despite this longstanding interest in the subject, the discipline has resisted an organizing paradigm. De Queiroz comprehensively describes the shift, beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, from Darwin's belief that long-distance dispersal was the dominant explanation for biogeographic patterns to the rise of those promoting vicariance the belief that environmental fragmentation is responsible for observed patterns and back again to promoting long distance dispersal. Beyond the actual science, de Queiroz brings insight into the nature of scientific discourse itself.--Publisher's Weekly

Carthage

Carthage (Get this book)
Dark events in Carthage, a town in upstate New York--a war hero returning from Iraq, a broken engagement, a mysterious murder--but not everything is as it seems. Carthage seems to embody the values of small-town America, for its citizens are independent and patriotic, but in early July 2005, things start to go dreadfully wrong. Juliet Mayfield, older daughter of former Carthage mayor Zeno Mayfield, is planning her wedding but finds her fiance, Brett Kincaid, broken and strangely different when he returns from duty in Iraq. Cpl. Kincaid is on a passel of meds, walks with a limp and has obviously experienced a severe trauma while on active duty. Knotted, tense, digressive and brilliant.--Kirkus

Before We Met

Lucie Whitehouse (Get this book)
Whitehouse's latest examines the relationship between two newlyweds following the husband's disappearance; the wife knows little about his past. Hannah was a career girl in New York. Though English by birth, she moved to the U.S. to work in public relations and found her dream job, but what she didn't find was her dream mate. Then, mutual friends introduced her to a fellow Brit, the handsome Mark Reilly, who founded his own wildly successful company. Following a whirlwind courtship and a quick marriage, he and Hannah returned to London, where she began job hunting. Whitehouse cleverly builds the suspense bit by bit, taking the reader deftly from the couple's initial newlywed bliss to Hannah's growing realization that things may not be what they seem. Astute readers will pick up on clues that things aren't right before the hapless Hannah, but they'll still enjoy this well-drawn, taught thriller all the way to the end.--Kirkus

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood

Jennifer Senior (Get this book)
From the starting point of parenting being a "high cost/high reward activity," New York contributor Senior delves into a broad survey of the topic, parsing out the different arenas in which children are molding the lives of their parents. Employment, marriage, hobbies, habits, relationships with friends and other family, even a parent's sense of his- or herself: Senior takes an analytical approach to each of these areas, looking at them through a variety of lenses--historical, economic, philosophical, anthropological. Senior could have made this book twice as long given the minefield parents and their kids face, but what she did produce is well-considered and valuable information.--Kirkus

The Polaris Protocol: A Pike Logan Thriller

Brad Taylor (Get this book)
Bestseller Taylor's fifth Pike Logan thriller takes all the energy of the previous installments and multiplies it by a force factor of 10. Pike and his girlfriend, Jennifer Cahill, are in Turkmenistan working on an assignment for Taskforce, the super-secret government antiterrorism agency, when Jennifer gets a phone message from her brother, Jack, who's in El Paso, Tex., reporting on a story involving the Sinaloa drug cartel. Certain that Jack is in trouble, Jennifer persuades Pike to search for her brother. Taskforce joins in once our heroes discover a plot to sell a device known as the Polaris Protocol that can disrupt worldwide GPS software. A great premise, nonstop action, and one of the baddest villains in the genre the assassin and torturer known as the Sicario make this a winner.--Publisher's Weekly

Absolute Value: What Really Influences Customers in the Age of (Nearly) Perfect Information

Itamar Simonson, Emanuel Rosen (Get this book)
An erudite study on how the information age has affected the consumer purchasing experience. Marketing and advertising professionals Simonson and Rosen collaborate on a timely discussion of how consumer purchasing patterns have drastically changed in recent years. They attribute this radical shift to the information age's increased availability of "perfect information," whereby consumers have unlimited access to peer reviews, informed professional opinions and specific details prior to purchasing a product. The age of informed decision-making is upon us, they write, and this means more carefully evaluated choices for buyers and the ultimate challenge for marketers and advertising teams. A well-produced economic study on how technology is changing how we shop.--Kirkus

Never Come Back

David Bell (Get this book)
In Bell's thriller, Elizabeth Hampton confronts a fractured family history in the aftermath of her mother's murder. Elizabeth is a grad student in her hometown in Ohio. There's a call from the police. Her mother is dead. Meeting authorities at her mother's home, she's shocked to learn that Leslie Hampton's death is considered suspicious. An intriguing, layered psychological thriller. The chapters are short, flow easily into one another and carry their own twisted logic to a believable conclusion.--Kirkus

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

Robert M. Gates (Get this book)
Gates was U.S. secretary of defense from 2006-2011, serving in the cabinets of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama two presidents who had little else in common. Gates's confirmation was a repudiation of his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, and his initial mission was to reverse a looming defeat in Iraq. As Gates, in this richly textured memoir, tells it, the Department of Defense had "alienated just about everyone in town" and the new secretary "had a lot of fences to mend." Gates frequently presents himself as the only adult in the room, but given his accounts of administration "micromanagement and operational meddling," a Congress that "up close... is truly ugly," frequent insider leaks, and a government suffering "paralytic polarization," his call for restoring "civility and mutual respect" is a cry from the heart.--Publisher's Weekly

Boy in the twilight : stories of the hidden China

Yu Hua (Get this book)
Thirteen new translations of stories by one of China's most outspoken critics of the Cultural Revolution. Hua can be hard to put into context since his work comes out in fits and starts due to the peculiarities of translation. These stories date from the mid-1990s and examine the lives of modern Chinese men and women through the prism of cynicism and violence. That subtext of violence appears in several stories, including the title story, where a boy's finger is broken, and the final story, "Friends," which ends with a no-holds-barred fistfight. The stories are spare and minimalist and quite well-composed, but the punctuation of violence and mistrust in them give them a disquieting tension. Menacing vignettes from a crowded, hardhearted corner of the globe.--Kirkus

The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections

Catherine Shaw (Get this book)
Shaw, the former mayor of Ashland, OR, and a political consultant, has created a handbook to walk candidates for local elections through all the steps of running a campaign. This revised and updated edition covers every phase of the process, for example, conducting initial precinct analysis, structuring the campaign organization, and creating the various forms of campaign materials. It is illustrated with helpful examples such as sample brochures and lawn signs, including clear instructions on how to install the signs. Anyone running for a local elected office will find this title a valuable resource for organizing and running a campaign.--Library Journal

Under the Wide and Starry Sky

Nancy Horan (Get this book)
Horan's spectacular second novel has been worth the wait. Brimming with the same artistic verve that drives her complicated protagonists, it follows the loving, tumultuous partnership of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and his Indiana-born wife, Fanny Osbourne. Horan also explores relevant social concerns, such as cultural imperialism and xenophobia, and how Stevenson's life influenced his literary themes. An exhilarating epic about a free-spirited couple who traveled the world yet found home only in one another.--Booklist

George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution

Brian Kilmeade, Don Yaeger (Get this book)
A history of the Culper Spy Ring, without which, the authors argue, the Americans would not have won the Revolutionary War. Nathan Hale was America's first spy, and his execution forced Gen. George Washington to find a man who could develop a spy ring to help him drive the British from New York. While Kilmeade and Yaeger don't provide deep analysis, the narrative should please enthusiastic fans of the upheaval surrounding the founding of the United States. In a slim, quick-moving book, the authors bring attention to a group that exerted an enormous influence over events during the Revolutionary War.--Kirkus

A Star for Mrs. Blake

April Smith (Get this book)
Smith offers a heartfelt glimpse into a little-known episode in U.S. history, the journey taken by mothers of U.S. soldiers fallen in WWI to visit their sons' graves in Europe. Smith focuses on five mothers whose sons were buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France. Smith deftly spotlights moments along their sojourn, from the giggling fits brought on by the French delicacies they are served on board ship to the tears they shed when confronted by the stark white lines of marble stones where their sons' remains now lie. Smith's foray into historical fiction is captivating and enlightening.--Booklist

Chasing Shackleton: Re-Creating the World's Greatest Journey of Survival

Tim Jarvis (Get this book)
Polar explorer Jarvis takes on the re-creation of one of the most difficult treks imaginable. Trying to "double" Ernest Shackleton's (1874-1922) desperate trip 800 nautical miles across the Southern Ocean in a 23-foot boat followed by a 35 kilometer trek across South Georgia's heavily glaciated mountains requires a tight team with a strong leader. Surely it was difficult enough to attempt this voyage, but as they accomplished it without modern (waterproof) clothing or navigational aids, it was a most remarkable feat. A well-written, compelling read begging for a warm fireside and a hot cup of cocoa.--Kirkus

The Scent of Pine

Lara Vapnyar (Get this book)
In Vapnyar's latest novel, a simplicity of narrative--two strangers share their lives over a weekend together--belies the complexity of interwoven themes and ideas. As the book begins, Lena is a self-conscious, self-criticizing woman traveling to an academic conference she does not feel prepared for, being only a professor at a community college. At the conference, she meets Ben, a university professor who teaches courses on graphic novels. Purely silly moments, the headiness of strangers connecting and the universal nature of summer camp lighten the mood. Slight in girth but not in depth.--Kirkus

My Life in Middlemarch

Rebecca Mead (Get this book)
In this deeply satisfying hybrid work of literary criticism, biography, and memoir, New Yorker staff writer Mead brings to vivid life the profound engagement that she and all devoted readers experience with a favorite novel over a lifetime. Her love affair with Middlemarch and its author, George Eliot, began when 17-year-old Mead was growing up in southwest England. Here, she wants to "go back to being a reader, " and sets out to rediscover Eliot, visiting the places Eliot lived, studying her letters, and even holding a journal in Eliot's own handwriting. Passionate readers, even those new to Middlemarch, will relish this book.--Publisher's Weekly

Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Anna Quindlen (Get this book)
Quindlen's seventh novel is a detailed exploration of creativity and the need for connection. Rebecca Winter is a 60-year-old photographer, once revered as a feminist icon, whose work isn't selling as briskly as it used to. She needs a fresh start after her marriage falls apart because her husband trades her in for a younger model (as he does every 10 years). Quindlen has always excelled at capturing telling details in a story, and she does so again in this quiet, powerful novel, showing the charged emotions that teem beneath the surface of daily life.--Publisher's Weekly

Arik: The Life of Ariel Sharon

David Landau (Get this book)
Economist Israel correspondent and former Haaretz editor in chief Landau offers a thorough, extremely candid description and assessment of the military and political lives of the controversial Sharon, who has been in a vegetative state since a massive stroke in 2006. The author does not focus so much on his personal life, though we learn about the accidental death of his son and his wife's succumbing to cancer. We also see the softening, leftish moves he made late in his career--moves that pleased many and infuriated others--especially the decision to close 21 settlements in Gaza in 2005. Splendid reporting, comprehensive research and probing analysis inform this unblinking view of a complicated man and a sanguinary geography.--Kirkus

Lost Lake

Sarah Addison Allen (Get this book)
Kate has been lingering in a fog throughout the year since her husband died, and it is only when her manipulative mother-in-law threatens to hijack her life that Kate begins to snap to. When her wardrobe-challenged eight-year-old daughter, Devin, discovers an old letter from Kate's great-aunt Eby, the pair go on the lam to Lost Lake, Eby's dilapidated resort camp tucked deep in the south Georgia swamplands. A surefire star of feel-good fiction, Allen always manages to nimbly mask her potent messages of inspiration and romance beneath her trademark touches of mirth and magic, but this endearing tale of surprising second chances may just be her wisest work yet.--Booklist