Abercrombie. Joe. Half a War. Del Rey. Jul. 2015. 352p. ISBN 9780804178457. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780804178471. FANTASY
First Half a King (July 2014), then Half the World (February 2015), and now the wrap-up to a trilogy featuring Yarvi, unassuming heir to the throne, who avenges his father’s murder and, with a warrior-hopeful young woman named Thorn, launches on a journey that will lead the entire nation to war. Big promotion, including at the Phoenix and San Diego Comic-cons; from From the New York Times best-selling author of Red Country.
Adler, Elizabeth. One Way or Another. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jul. 2015. 384p. ISBN 9781250058188. $26.99. SUSPENSE
Ellen is enjoying a summer’s eve on a yacht when she’s discreetly stabbed and pushed into the water, as everyone on board stands around acting oblivious. Even as she fights the waves, 
she plots revenge. Great beach reading, as long as you stay on the beach.
Atkins, Ace. The Redeemers. Putnam. Jul. 2015. 352p. ISBN 9780399173943. $26.95. CRIME
Forced from his job as sheriff of Tibbehah County, MS, owing to some ugly maneuvering by county bad guy Johnny Stagg, Quinn Colson is getting ready to wipe Stagg off the map when the local lumber mill owner is robbed and the new sheriff killed during the investigation. Now Quinn has another plan. With a national author tour.
Brookes, Adam. Midnight Blind. Redhook: Hachette. Jul. 2015. 352p. ISBN 9780316399906. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780316399883; lib. ebk. ISBN 9780316378628. ACTION & ADVENTURE
In BBC correspondent Brookes’s much-praised debut thriller, Night Heron, journalist Philip Mangan is recruited as a go-between when a Chinese labor camp prisoner who once served British intelligence escapes. In this follow-up, Mangan is hiding from Chinese agents when a terrorist attack in East Africa and an MI6 source’s murder in Hong Kong force his hand.
Bruen, Ken. Green Hell. Mysterious. Jul. 2015. 304p. ISBN 9780802123565. $25; ebk. ISBN 9780802191304. MYSTERY
Two Barry Awards, two Shamus Awards, two Edgar nominations, and two Bruen-based feature films: this edgy Irish crime novelist has golden credentials. In his 11th Jack Taylor novel, our hero, kicked out of the Irish national police way back and no longer resisting his addiction to alcohol and pills, is plotting vengeance against a celebrated literature professor with a decidedly violent streak when he rescues a 
preppy Rhodes Scholar from some thugs and gains an eager associate. It gets tenser with the entrance of an over-the-top young Goth named Emerald, who’s compared to Lisbeth Salander.
Castillo, Linda. After the Storm: A Kate Burkholder Novel. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jul. 2015. 320p. ISBN 9781250061560. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466867260. CD: Macmillan Audio. POLICE PROCEDURAL
When human remains are uncovered after a hurricane roars through town, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must contend with a 30-year-old murder case, even as her burgeoning relationship with state agent John Tomasetti hits a rough spot. From a New York Times best seller who’s won the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence; Sworn to Silence hit the TV screens as a Lifetime original movie titled An Amish Murder.
Chu, Wesley. Time Salvager. Tor. Jul. 2015. 384p. ISBN 9780765377180. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466854543. SF
Since Chu was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer whose debut novel, The Lives of Tao, won a Young Adult Library Services Association Alex Award, you’ll want to check out his new work. Sometime in the future, humans have fled a toxic Earth, surviving in outer space via carefully managed time travel, and convicted criminals called chronmen are compelled to return to Earth’s past to retrieve valuable resources. On his final trip before retiring, James Griffin-Mars breaks the cardinal rule—leaving the timeline undisturbed—when he meets a doomed scientist named Elise Kim.
Coulter, Catherine. Nemesis. Putnam. Jul. 2015. 368p. ISBN 9780399171277. $26.95. SUSPENSE
Even as Special Agent Lacey Sherlock thwarts terrorist attacks at JFK airport and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, fellow agent Dillon Savich tracks a murderer who looks like Dracula and finally turns his fangs on Savich. Of course, the cases converge. Another of the author’s New York Times 
best-selling FBI thrillers.
Gladstone, Max. Last First Snow. Tor. Jul. 2015. 368p. ISBN 9780765379405. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466868403. FANTASY
Forty years after the God Wars at the heart of Gladstone’s perceptively written fantasy series, the “Craft Sequence,” the gods have tumbled, but in the poor district of Skittersill the gods’ wards are intact. That’s good news because demons are kept at bay, but bad news because the city cannot move forward. The King in Red hires Elayne Kevarian of the Craft firm Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao to fix the wards, but Skittersill’s residents aren’t buying it. Fourth novel in the series; from a two-time John W. Campbell Award finalist.
Goodkind, Terry. The First Confessor. Tor. Jul. 2015. 576p. ISBN 9780765383068. $29.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466890817. FANTASY
After the suicide of her husband, a powerful leader of their people, a shocked and grieving Magda Searus starts investigating—and realizes that there’s more to his death than she imagined. Hence her hunt for a rumored spiritist who can talk to the dead, which leads her to a deeper understanding of the tragedy befalling those around her. A prequel to the author’s popular “Sword of Truth” series.
Grossman, Austin. Crooked. Mulholland: Little, Brown. Jul. 2015. 368p. ISBN 9780316198516. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780316198516. lib. ebk. ISBN 9780316322843. Downloadable: Hachette Audio. ALTERNATIVE HISTORY
This is unexpected: Grossman, author of the 2007 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize for Soon I Will Be Invincible, reenvisions Richard Nixon as a man waging a secret battle against the occult, having discovered a supernatural secret as a young man—all of which gives a whole new 
meaning to the Cold War, the Watergate scandal, and more. Nixon as hero? Will Nixonites celebrate?
Kadrey, Richard. Killing Pretty: A Sandman Slim Novel. Harper Voyager. 320p. ISBN 9780062373106. $25.95; ebk. ISBN 9780062373243. FANTASY
Sandman Slim is back, and Death needs his help—after all, the guy defeated Satan. To find out who tried to kill Death, or at least the body Death has been inhabiting, our hero wends his way through subterranean L.A.’s chancier haunts. Wouldn’t you know that along the way he meets a woman who’s as tough as he is. With a 75,000-copy first printing.
Kava, Alex. Silent Creed. Putnam. Jul. 2015. 336p. ISBN 9780399170775. $26.95. ACTION & ADVENTURE
Ryder Creed is wading through a mud slide in North Carolina with his K9 rescue dog Bolo when he is sucked under by a second slide and saved only when Bolo’s smart barks alert others. But the mud yields up evidence of a serial killer and some bad reminders of Creed’s past. From a New York Times best-selling author.
Kosmatka, Ted. The Flicker Men. Holt. Jul. 2015. 352p. ISBN 9780805096194. $27. THRILLER
In this latest from Locus and Nebula finalist Kosmatka, who likes putting science on edge, the already controversial Eric Argus replicates Richard Feynman’s double-slit experiment 
demonstrating the dual nature of light and matter, then in expanded research detects a relentless difference between humans and other animals. In fact, he’s discovered the human soul. Whoa!
Lawson, Mike. House Rivals: A Joe DeMarco Thriller. Atlantic Monthly. Jul. 2015. 352p. ISBN 9780802123602. $25. THRILLER
In his tenth outing, Joe DeMarco heads to North Dakota to protect 22-year-old blogger Sarah Johnson, who’s been gunning for a billionaire oil tycoon she suspects of bribery. Things get ugly fast. From a three-time Barry Award finalist.
Liu Cixin.The Dark Forest. Tor. Jul. 2015. 480p. ISBN 9780765377081. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466853430. SF
Eight-time winner of the Galaxy Award (the Chinese Hugo) and a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award, Liu has been called the most popular sf writer in the People’s Republic of China, and he’s starting to make headway here. In his new work, an alien invasion is threatened a few centuries hence, and subatomic particles on Earth are giving the nasty Trisolaris instant access to all human information, though the human mind remains a mystery. The Wallfacer Project is supposed to keep it that way, but one of the four Wallfacers, modest astronomer Luo Ji, is being targeted by the Trisolaris.
Lovesey, Peter. Down Among the Dead Men. Soho Crime. Jul. 2015. 384p. ISBN 9781616956264. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9781616956271. MYSTERY
When their art teacher disappears, the students at an elite girls’ school in Sussex don’t care—she was a terror, and her replacement is a really hot guy. But she finally turns up on a police missing-persons list, and Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond of Bath gets involved while in Sussex with his exasperating supervisor to investigate a seven-year-old murder 
implicating one of Peter’s old friends. From the multi-award winner (e.g., the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement) of more than 30 classic British detective stories.
McCall Smith, Alexander. The Novel Habits of Happiness: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel. Pantheon. Jul. 2015. 256p. ISBN 9780307907356. $24.95. MYSTERY
In the tenth in the relentlessly best-selling Isabel Dalhousie series, the Edinburgh philosopher and amateur sleuth is approached by a woman whose son recalls perfect images of an island off the coast of Scotland he’s never seen. Obviously, Isabel is curious. The series will now be released in summer, that hot reading time.
Mayne, Andrew. Name of the Devil: A Jessica Blackwood Novel. Bourbon Street: HarperCollins. Jul. 2015. 320p. ISBN 9780062348890. pap. $15.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062348906. MYSTERY
The star of A&E’s magic reality show Don’t Trust Andrew Mayne, Mayne self-published several novels until he hit it big with last year’s Angel Killer, which stars magician–turned–FBI agent Jessica Blackwood and launched with 100,000 paid downloads. (It’s been optioned by TV producers Craig Zaden and Neil Meron, too.) Having helped capture a serial killer who only looked to be supernatural, Jessica seems like the right agent for the next bizarre case: a church congregation in rural Appalachia that simply vanishes. With a 40,000-copy first printing.
Panowich, Brian. Bull Mountain. Putnam. Jul. 2015. 304p. ISBN 9780399173967. $26.95. MYSTERY
For generations, Clayton Burroughs’s family has run moonshine, weed, and meth over six state 
lines from their home on Georgia’s Bull Mountain, but renegade Clayton is sheriff of a nearby community. Then an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms comes knocking, and his plans to shut down the family’s operations could be bad news for Clayton. With a national tour, and Panowich will certainly be interesting to hear: before he was a novelist, he was a musician, then a fire fighter.
Quinn, Spencer. Scents and Sensibility: A Chet and Bernie Mystery. Atria. Jul. 2015. 320p. ISBN 9781476703428. $25. MYSTERY
What’s grabbed the attention of Chet and his human PI companion, Bernie Little, in their eighth outing? Cactus smuggling! But this thorny case soon leads them to a long-ago (but questionable) kidnapping and a powerfully persuasive criminal who has a loyal following—as does this series.
Robinson, Kim Stanley. Aurora. Orbit. Jul. 2015. 480p. ISBN 9780316098106. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780316378741. lib. ebk. ISBN 9780316378758. Downloadable: Hachette Audio. SF
A New York Times best-selling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards whose most recent book was Shaman), Robinson crafts the story of humans traveling for generations to their new home: Aurora.
Rosenfelt, David. Who Let the Dog Out?: An Andy Carpenter Mystery. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jul. 2015. 336p. ISBN 9781250055330. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466859913. MYSTERY
When lawyer Andy Carpenter learns that a dog has been stolen from the Tara Foundation 
building, he easily finds it, since all the foundation’s rescue dogs are given collars with GPS tracking capabilities. That the dog is standing over the body of a man shot moments earlier does complicate matters. Fourteenth in the popular series from the Edgar and Shamus Award-nominated author; the big summer tour will includes events with several dog-rescue groups.
Silva, Daniel. The English Spy. Morrow. Jul. 2015. 464p. ISBN 9780062320131. $27.99. THRILLER
ebk. ISBN 9780062320155. CD: HarperAudio. THRILLER
Art restorer, assassin, and spy, Gabriel Allon is back for your entertainment. No plot details yet, but expect lots of readers for this latest in a string of New York Times best sellers from Silva, whose sales have been bounding. There’s a 500,000-copy first printing.
Söderberg, Alexander. The Other Son: A Sophie Brinkmann Novel. Crown. Jul. 2015. 368p. ISBN 9780770436087. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780770436094. CD/downloadable: Random Audio. THRILLER
Swedish TV screenwriter Söderberg, who got some stand-out praise for his debut thriller, The Andalucian Friend, follows with a sequel. Sophie Brinkmann, now tangled up in Hector Guzman’s crime family, grabs hold of her fate when Hector’s brother is murdered.
Stevens, Chevy. Those Girls. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2015. 384p. ISBN 9781250034588. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250034595. THRILLER
Stevens, who’s done nicely since Still Missing won the 2011 Thriller Award for Best First Novel, returns with a tale of three sisters. When Jess, Courtney, and Dani Campbell flee their ranch in western Canada and their father’s vile temper, their truck breaks down in the worst spot 
imaginable, with such unwelcome consequences that they must change their names and reinvent themselves. All’s well until, years later, one sister disappears.
Thor, Brad. Code of Conduct. Emily Bestler: Atria. Jul. 2015. 320p. ISBN 9781476717159. $27.99. THRILLER
No word yet on the plot of this book, 14th in the series starring Scot Harvath, ex-Navy SEAL Secret Service agent and savior of the Western World. But fans will be clamoring.
Woods, Stuart. Naked Greed. Putnam. Jul. 2015. 320p. ISBN 9780399174667. $27.95. ACTION & ADVENTURE
Who knew beer making and distribution could cause so much trouble? Stone Barrington finds out when he rescues a prominent brewery owner from two rogue policemen. Woods on his usual roll.
Xiao Bai. French Concession. Harper. Jul. 2015. 368p. ISBN 9780062313454. $27.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062313560. ESPIONAGE
Really, could anyone resist a spy novel set in 1931 Shanghai? In this English-language debut of an award-winning Chinese author, a Nationalist Party bigwig is assassinated when his ship 
arrives in Shanghai harbor, and his stunning wife, Leng, disappears. Hsueh, a Franco Chinese photographer also on board, finds himself forced to spy for the police as he tracks both Leng and his suddenly sneaky White Russian lover, Therese.
Young, Tom. The Hunters. Putnam. Jul. 2015. 352p. ISBN 9780399166891. $26.95. WAR & MILITARY
It’s generous of Col. Michael Parson to agree to fly relief supplies into Somalia in a positively ancient DC-3 cargo plane, but now the supply planes are under attack after a leader of the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabaab declares all aid a sin against Allah. And what about that teenage al-Shabaab fighter seeking asylum? Authentic reading.
