Police
by Jo Nesbø (Knopf)
Its billed as a new Harry Hole novel on the cover, so that’s good news right off the bat for fans of the Oslo detective who was shot in the head by his surrogate son at the end of last year’s “Phantom.” Now, police reinvestigating cold cases are being murdered at the old crime scenes. And while Harry is out of action (but not out of mind), his friend Bjórn Holm, forensics expert Beate Lønn and new police chief Mikael Bellman are in the forefront. Will Harry return and help solve these heinous crimes? Can he?
Actors Anonymous
by James Franco (New Harvest)
Whether you believe James Franco is a Renaissance man or a big goof, he’s just added another line to his résumé — novelist. Sort of. His newest literary effort is a bit of a helter-skelter work, with some short stories, streams of consciousness, spoofs on Alcoholics Anonymous and even a character named James Franco. In one chapter, River Phoenix contacts him from beyond the grave. In another section, “Tell the Truth,” he goes on about how he picks up women: He asks the young girls who want a photo with him to e-mail him a copy, then he can hook up when he returns to that city.
The 34-Ton Bat The Story of Baseball as Told Through Bobbleheads, Cracker Jacks, Jockstraps, Eye Black, and 375 Other Strange and Unforgettable Objects
by Steve Rushin (Little, Brown)
Give this one Required Reading’s LS Award — Longest Subtitle. And it pretty much sums up what’s in here. But what it doesn’t show is the care Rushin, a veteran Sports Illustrated scribe, takes and the love he shows for the game, with the eyes-wide-open feel of a kid entering the a big-league ballpark for the first time. Before he gets into the baseball-shaped grenade invented before WWI or the history of baseball caps, he reverently tells of his catcher-grandfather’s one single game in the major leagues in 1926. A real delight.
The Paris Architect
by Charles Belfoure (Sourcebooks)
Wartime loyalties, architectural designs and novels are never as simple as they seem. Architect Belfoure explores the complex underside of all of these things in his first novel, the story of an anti-Semitic French architect, Lucien Bernard. During the Holocaust, the fictional Bernard designs secret hideaways — in pillars, behind mirrors and in drainpipes — for Jews. He has one motivation — money. But that changes after he hides a child and falls in love.
Harlem Street Portraits
by Harvey Stein (Schiffer Publishing)
There’s a fine old Sly and the Family Stone song called “Everyday People,” and that title just might fit noted street photographer Stein’s latest book, a follow-up to “Coney Island: Forty Years.” His photos, from 1990 to 2012, and shot usually no more than three feet from his subject, include schoolkids, cool kids, African immigrants, churchgoers, teens with baseball caps, parents, bodega workers and more.