the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension, and his FBI task force
partner, Carla Windermere, investigate.
Stevens is sure Irina didn’t kill Friesen.
Irina is determined to save her younger
sister, Catalina, from the clutches of the
sex traffickers. Meanwhile, Andrei
Volovoi, orchestrator of the slave ring, and
his menacing partner, known only as the
Dragon, prepare to teach Irina a lesson.
Laukkanen deftly mixes sharp social criticism with bleak white-knuckle suspense.
Agent: Stacia Decker, Donald Maass Literary
Agency. (Mar.)
Lacy Eye
Jessica Treadway. Grand Central, $26 (352p)
ISBN 978-1-4555-5407-2
In this deftly plotted psychological
thriller from Treadway (And Give You
Peace), a brutal home invasion leaves
Hanna Schutt permanently disfigured and
her husband, Joe, dead. The speech-impaired Hanna communicates to the
police, via what the press dubs “the
Nods,” that the culprit is Rud Petty, the
boyfriend of her younger daughter, Dawn.
This, in addition to circumstantial evidence, leads to Petty’s conviction. Three
years later, Petty has won an appeal, and
Hanna is terrified the case will hinge on
her faulty memory. College-age Dawn—
always an awkward child who was teased
mercilessly for her lazy eye—returns to
the family home in upstate New York for
the first time since the tragedy. It’s
common knowledge the prosecution
sought to indict her for her role in the
attack, but charges wouldn’t stick. Hanna
must learn to separate her fierce love for
her daughter and the slowly emerging
truth about that fateful night. Treadway
paints a devastating portrait of a family
torn apart from both the outside and
within. Five-city author tour. Agent:
Kimberly Witherspoon, Inkwell Management.
(Mar.)
★ Too Bad to Die
Francine Mathews. Riverhead, $27.95 (368p)
ISBN 978-1-59463-179-5
Mathews (Jack 1939) delivers a literate
and sophisticated what-if historical
thriller. In 1943, Franklin Roosevelt,
Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin
gather in Tehran, where the ostensible
allies must find common ground in the
fight against Nazi Germany, despite their
mutual mistrust. Alan Turing, the head of
Britain’s secret Enigma project, discovers
that a German operative known as the
Fencer plans to murder all three leaders
during the conference, but Turing is able
to offer relatively few clues to the Fencer’s
identity. The burden of foiling the
German agent falls to future James Bond
creator Ian Fleming, a Naval Intelligence
officer who’s frustrated at having been rel-
egated to desk duty. Fleming’s task is
made even more daunting when his supe-
riors view his warning with some skepti-
cism. Mathews makes the historical fig-
ures come to life, and even though readers
know the Fencer doesn’t succeed, they
will be caught up in suspense reminiscent
of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the
Jackal. Agent: Raphael Sagalyn, Sagalyn
Literary Agency. (Mar.)
Werewolf Cop
Andrew Klavan. Pegasus Crime (Norton, dist.),
$25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-60598-698-2
In this oddly effective supernatural
thriller from Klavan ( The Identity Man),
Det. Zachary Adams, a top investigator
on a federal task force, must track down
criminal mastermind Dominic Abend,
the leader of an international crime syndicate that has achieved total subversion of
the European political establishment.
Zach discovers that Abend is seeking the
location of an ancient dagger with alleged
demonic powers. He follows a lead to
meet an expert on the dagger, and there
the story takes a wild turn as a werewolf
attacks Zach and transmits to him its
curse. Zach’s own disbelief and bewilderment give way to his determination to use
his new state to catch Abend and end the
threat of the magical dagger. From this
point on, the narrative proceeds with a
dreamlike logic to a satisfying and action-filled conclusion, fitting both Zach’s
police background and his fantastic transformation into a creature of vengeance.
Agent: Robert Gottlieb, Trident Media Group.
(Mar.)
Murder on the Champ de Mars
Cara Black. Soho Crime, $27.95 (320p) ISBN
978-1-61695-286-0
Family matters dominate bestseller
Black’s absorbing 15th Aimée Leduc
investigation (after 2014’s Murder in
Advertisement
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
Love:
The Tiger
★
As the ;rst book in a series
that focuses on a day in the life of
a wild animal in its natural habitat,
this wordless graphic novel will
engage those who enjoy comics in
their purest form. Brremaud (
Eleanor) and Bertolucci (Dinodino’s
Dinosaur Adventures) give us a
jungle where life is as transitory as
it is beautiful, following the tiger
on a day’s adventures, the law of
its natural environment de;ned as
much by instinct and happenstance
as by might. Some creatures make
the most narrow escapes and others,
far more powerful, are not nearly
as lucky. What’s most impressive
is the worldbuilding—depicting a
world that, as the book tells us, is
de;ned by “an elemental love. A
love that mankind can never experience.” Visually, the book is a marvel, with panel after panel of Bertolucci’s gorgeous palette of jungle
greens disrupted by the tiger’s distinctive orange blaze. The other animals are beautifully rendered, and
the storytelling has the feeling of an
animated ;lm. Despite the lack of
words, readers will ;nd this book
very well written. (Feb.)
—Publishers Weekly
Jan. 9, 2015
Frederic Brremaud.
Federico Bertolucci, Illus.
Magnetic Press, $17.99 (80p)
ISBN 978-0-9913324-4-1
www.magnetic-press.com/love
