Adios Muchachos
Daniel Chavarria, translated by Carlos Lopez
Akashic Books
$13.95 pb/$11.16

The first suspense novel in English translation by internationally acclaimed Uruguayan mystery writer Daniel Chavarría, Adios Muchachos is a dark, erotic, brutally funny romp through the sexual underworld and black-market boardrooms of post-Cold War Cuba.

The Cold Six Thousand
James Ellroy
Vintage/Random House
$15.95 pb/$12.76

"Ellroy's latest novel looks at the dark side of American life during the 1960s, focusing on a Las Vegas police officer, Wayne Tedrow Jr., and his inadvertent role in the cover-up of John F. Kennedy's assassination. The narrative spans a five-year period and traces Tedrow's dealings with the Mafia, the Ku Klux Klan, and various political and cultural icons of that time period. Ellroy's fast-paced tale takes the reader on a breathtaking ride through the underbelly of America." -- Library Journal

Dark Star
Alan Furst
Random House
$12.95 pb/$10.36

Paris, Moscow, Berlin, and Prague, 1937. In the back alleys of nighttime Europe, war is already under way. André Szara, survivor of the Polish pogroms and the Russian civil wars and a foreign correspondent for Pravda, becomes a full-time spymaster in Paris. Szara finds his own star rising when he recruits an agent in Berlin who can supply crucial information. Dark Star captures not only the intrigue and danger of clandestine life but the day-to-day reality of what Soviet operatives call special work.

Night Soldiers
Alan Furst
Random House
$12.95 pb/$10.36

Night Soldiers masterfully re-creates the European world of 1934-45: the struggle between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for Eastern Europe, the last desperate gaiety of the beau monde in 1937 Paris, and guerrilla operations with the French underground in 1944. Night Soldiers is a scrupulously researched panoramic novel, a work on a grand scale.

Ex-Libris
Ross King
Penguin/Putnam Penguin
$13.00 pb/$10.40

"King's remarkable literary thriller... set in 1660s London sparkles with intrigue and adventure, offering a heady mix of literature, history, politics, and philosophy and taking readers from ancient Rome to the sack of Constantinople and England's Civil War... Both here and in his recent award-winning nonfiction work Brunelleschi's Dome, King's writing reflects a vast and remarkable knowledge of European politics, history, art, literature, socioeconomics, and religion. Ex-Libris requires some effort on the part of readers, but it will be amply rewarded by King's provocative plot, brilliant craftsmanship, and ability to make the people, places, and events of the past sparkle with life. This is a superbly written must-read worthy of five stars." -- Booklist

Garnethill
Denise Mina
Carroll and Graf/Avalon Books
$14.00 pb/$11.20

"Maureen O'Donnell wakes up hung over and finds her married boyfriend tied to a chair with his throat cut. Sexually abused as a child and unstable as an adult, Maureen, a prime suspect and on the verge of a second breakdown, isn't sure where to turn for support. Her mother is an alcoholic, and her brother peddles dope. Between sessions with the Glasgow police, off-the-wall friends, and dysfunctional relatives, she embarks on some desperate sleuthing of her own and uncovers frightening information about people she thought she knew and happenings at the psychiatric clinic where she'd been a patient. This debut novel from an author who has worked in health care and taught criminology and criminal law provides a fascinating look at the seamier side of life in Glasgow. It also provides insights into some who treat mental illness and some of the treated." -- Booklist

Little America
Henry Bromell
Vintage/Random House
$14.00 pb/$11.20

In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, CIA agent Mack Hooper arrived in the tiny middle-eastern kingdom of Kurash with a mission to befriend and protect its inexperienced young ruler. Now, forty years later, the country no longer exists and Mack's son Terry is trying to piece together his father's story. "Savvy... a work of high intelligence, in every sense of the word... both a subtly understated thriller and an ironic parody of the intricacy and opacity of the espionage genre itself." -- Kirkus

Murder in Belleville
Cara Black
Soho Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
$13.00 pb/$10.40

Tension runs high in this working-class neighborhood as a hunger strike to protest strict immigration laws escalates among the Algerian immigrants. Aimee barely escapes death in a car bombing in this tale of terrorism and greed in the shadows of Paris. "The real star of the show is Cara Black's depiction of contemporary Paris." -- San Francisco Chronicle

Cape Cod Stories: Tales from the Cape, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard
edited by John Miller and Tim Smith
Chronicle Books
$14.95 pb/$11.96

From the drifting sand dunes and quaint shops of Provincetown to Nantucket's whitewashed verandas and craggy beaches, Cape Cod Stories evokes all the rustic beauty and history of this picturesque area in the words of America's best writers. With a striking new cover, this popular anthology is the next best thing to a summer on the Cape.