Two Thrillers To Watch
Next week, Charles Cumming‘s spy novel Trinity Six arrives with a 150,000-copy first printing and four out of four stars from People magazine – which calls it “a smashing Cold War thriller for the 21st century.” The novel centers on the “Cambridge Five” (Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, et al.), who betrayed England to the Soviet Union during and after WWII.
PW says it “revitalizes the moribund cold war spy novel…. Cumming’s knowledge of the spy business, his well-crafted prose, and his intensely engaging plot make this a breakthrough novel.”
Libraries we checked have very low orders and modest holds on this title and the next one, below, by Cara Hoffman.
 |
|
Macmillan Audio; 9781427211408; $34.99
Large Type; Thorndike; 9781410437150; May 2011; $31.99
So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman (Simon & Schuster), arrives with a 75,000 printing and an early thumbs up from the Los Angeles Times, which calls it “a skillful, psychologically acute tale of how violence affects a small town… the payoff is more than worth the slow-building suspense.”
 |
|
Usual Suspects…
Toys by James Patterson and Neil McMahon (Little, Brown) is a thriller about a man who must leave his family to save humans from extinction.
Emily, Alone by Stewart O’Nan is a sequel to the bestselling novel Wish You Were Here. PW calls it “bracingly unsentimental, ruefully humorous, and unsparingly candid novel about the emotional and physical travails of old age…. O’Nan’s depiction of [this 80 year-old widow’s] attempts to sustain optimism and energy during the late stage of her life achieves a rare resonance.”
Young Adult
A World Without Heroes by Brandon Mull (Aladdin) is the first in a new series about a girl and a boy lost in an alternate world, by the author of the popular Fablehaven series. PW says, “Death and betrayal often dominate the plot, but Mull moves his story at a brisk pace, preventing the tragedies from overwhelming the adventure, while offering ample action and feisty dialogue to keep fantasy lovers entertained.”
The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight by L.J. Smith (HarperTeen) is the final chapter of the Vampire Diaries: The Return trilogy.