Fun House
A John Ceepak Mystery
by Chris Grabenstein (Pegasus)
Get a head start on summer-reading season with Grabenstein’s newest adventure of straight-laced cop John Ceepak and his wisecracking, Springsteen-spouting younger partner Danny Boyle. When reality TV series “Fun House” sets down in the Jersey Shore town of Sea Haven, the cops get into the picture when they arrest Paulie “The Thing” Braciole. But things get serious when “The Thing” is murdered — and ratings skyrocket. Could it be his steroid supplier?
Railsea
by China Miéville (Del Rey)
Melville meets Miéville? The author of “Perdido Street Station” and “Embassytown” calls his latest work “weird fiction.” He presents a dystopian “Moby-Dick” in which there are no oceans, just islands linked by the tracks of the enormous “railsea” system. On one train, a woman captain pursues the nemesis who tore off one of her arms years earlier: a giant, ratlike mole that she is willing to battle to the death. It’s all a riff on not only sea-adventure stories but also on capitalism.
The Taliban Cricket Club
by Timeri N. Murari (Ecco)
In 2000, Indian author Murari read an unlikely news story about Afghanistan’s Taliban government promoting cricket. That was the seed that grew into this novel about a young journalist, Rukhsana, in Kabul, caring for her widowed mother and her brother. When the Taliban announce a cricket tournament, with the winner to compete in Pakistan, she sees a way out and forms a team. But then the head of feared Ministry for the Propagation of Virture and the Prevention of Vice demands her hand in marriage.
Patriot of Persia
Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup
by Christopher de Bellaigue (Harper)
As the world tries to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, perhaps it’s worth a look at some history of the West’s relationship with that country. British Journalist de Bellaigue looks at a time when it was oil, not enriched uranium, that was bedeviling the British and Americans. It was 1953, when the superpower allies fomented a coup against Iran’s popular Prime Minister Mossadegh, who had nationalized Iran’s oil industry — then under British control. The more friendly shah took power. And 2 1/2 decades later, he was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution whose rogue, repressive regime is causing trouble today.
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
by Ben Fountain (Ecco)
A star is born in the Lone Star State in Fountain’s debut novel. Billy and his Bravo Squad win their 15 minutes of fame after an embedded Fox News crew films their fight against Iraqi insurgents. They begin a surreal American victory tour at halftime of the Dallas Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day game, where they share the stage with Beyoncé, and are courted by producers and cheerleaders alike. But these soldiers aren’t headed for Hollywood, they’re going back to Iraq, in a portrait of war that echoes “Catch-22” and “Slaughterhouse-Five.”