Even though we head further into Winter, a little post-Christmas thawing takes place in the new and upcoming books release schedule. Maybe too little - but things should be snowballing again over the next few weeks. Watch This Space. 

FICTION

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
This tale of modern-day gumshoes and gurus, as I've mentioned in my recent Blogcritics review, surrounds an intertwining account of a seemingly jaded Sikh police inspector and a notorious Hindu gangster. A departure from Chandra’s 1995 debut novel of magical realism, Red Earth and Pouring Rain, and 1997’s story collection Love and Longing, Sacred Games sees Chandra casting off the phantasmagoric flights of fancy while retaining the realistic and nuanced intricacies, wide-ranging plotlines and high-definition characters in a masterfully down-to-earth yet kaleidoscopic achievement.

Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich
Another entry in the popular Stephanie Plum Mystery Series. Mysterious men have a way of showing up in the apartment of Plum — Evanovich’s lingerie buyer turned bounty hunter protagonist — and so maybe it's not so surprising when the enigmatic heartthrob Diesel appears. What is unexpected is that he has a proposition - and he's not taking no for an answer.

Exile by Richard North Patterson
One of America's most reliable novelists pens a compelling story of a San Francisco lawyer who is asked to defend an ex-lover, a Palestinian woman, against charges of conspiring to assassinate the prime minister of Israel. An emotionally-divided David Wolfe, on the path to a congressional campaign, takes a detour and jeopardizes his future to take the case, as Patterson delves into both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Also New in Fiction:

Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares

Web of Evil: A Novel of Suspense by J.A. Jance

The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey

Deeper Sleep: A Kate Shugak Novel by Dana Stabenow

A False Mirror: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd

Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber

NON-FICTION:

Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties by Robert Stone
Oh no, another book about the '60s. But if anyone can do them justice — or properly debunk them — it is National Book Award winner (for Dog Soldiers) Robert Stone, despite, or because of, Stone’s largely apolitical stance early on. While mostly known for his novels, Stone now delves into his personal past with this memoir. From his early days in New York and a stint with the Navy, Prime Green chronicles Stone’s emergence as a reporter with the New York Daily News and a blossoming writer at Stanford University. He also traces his cross-country travels with Ken Kesey's acid-fueled Merry Pranksters, and in a different frame of mind, his days as a correspondent in Vietnam where he witnessed the invasion of Laos. Long strange trip and conflict, indeed, and all in the pages of Prime Green…