After last week's slim pickin's, the end of March offers a little more in quantity and variety, but it's not exactly going out like a lion... 

FICTION:

Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman
Obsession by Karen Robards

Don’t these publishers ever get together and talk? Don’t their Left-Hand-Doesn’t-Know-What-The-Right-Hand’s-Doing Departments of Redundancy Departments plan ahead? If I sound a little obsessed and in some kind of novelistic tizzy, chalk it off to the fact that there are two psychological thrillers entitled Obsession out this week - both by prominent authors.

But let me try and sort it out a bit. In Karen Robards’ 23rd novel, a nearly-murdered woman’s life is thrown into disarray when she awakens in a home she doesn't recognize as hers and quickly discovers that she's part of a CIA sting. But it’s love-on-the-run as she seeks escape and refuge with a newfound protector of the tall, dark, and — just speculating, here — handsome variety.

In Jonathan Kellerman’s take on Obsession, marking his 21st Alex Delaware novel,
a spunky teen’s life is thrown into disarray with her aunt’s deathbed confession that she had committed murder long ago, prompting the niece to seek help from psychologist Alex Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis. Complications ensue, however, as newly-minted close-to-the-family corpses ensue, too.

Another difference between Robards’ and Kellerman’s brands of Obsession — and this may be the clincher for the enquiring consumer — comes with the fact that Kellerman’s book has an interactive online game as a tie-in. Because you can never get enough of cold cases and corpses.

Simply Magic by Mary Balogh

Into a Dark Realm: Book Two of the Darkwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist

Set Sail for Murder by Carolyn G. Hart

The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag

Dark Room by Andrea Kane

Flawless (Pretty Little Liars Series #2) by Sara Shepard

Hunter's Moon by Randy Wayne White

NONFICTION:

Schmucks!: Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous, and Good Guys Gone Bad by Jackie Mason, Raoul Felder

The subtitle pretty much sums it up, as comedy legend Mason and celebrity attorney Felder draw a satiric bead on the lowlifes, riff-raff, and ne’er-do-wells among America’s politicians, sports stars, celebrities, corporations, and then some.

Beatles Swan Song: She Loves You and Other Records by Bruce Spizer

Speaking of Jackie Mason-style “Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, and Liars,” I wish, in Bruce Spizer's sixth and final installment of his fine series on the Beatles American records, there was a chapter for phony Beatlemania, which would most assuredly include a reference to what I thought was to be a gift of my very first Beatles album when I was a kid. Imagine my surprise, however, when the LP I was bestowed with extolled — for 88 cents! — THE BEETLES SOUND… by the Buggs. Indeed, “The big print giveth and the small print giveth away,” as Tom Waits once gravel-garbled.

The New American Story by Bill Bradley

True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of ANA Montes, Cuba's Master Spy by Scott W. Carmichael

Necessary Sins: A Memoir by Lynn Darling

Vivien Leigh: A Biography, manufactured by Indigo Publishing

Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry by Holly George-Warren

Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Super Bowl by Craig Harline

The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip G. Zimbardo