Publishers Weekly - March 7, 2016

novel (after 2014’s Destroyer Angel), the National Park Service ranger accepts a short-term assignment in Maine’s Acadia National Park. She’s joined by her friend Heath Jarrod, Heath’s spry Aunt Gwen Littleton, and 16-year-old Elizabeth, Heath’s adopted daughter and Anna’s goddaughter, who has been targeted by a vicious cyberstalker at home in Boulder, Colo. They soon realize that the stalker has followed Elizabeth to Maine, but because of jurisdictional issues and vague laws, the local police can do little. Meanwhile, Anna becomes involved in a murder investigation that pits her against a pathologically cunning, increasingly unstable adversary. Barr excels at conveying the often harsh realities faced by lobstermen and their families, though her depiction of the antagonist is less compelling and fails to achieve nuance or dimension. Still, readers looking for a lively escape in a rugged, brutal, but magnificent landscape should find plenty to enjoy. 150,000 first printing; author tour. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency. (May)

The Wolf of Sarajevo

Matthew Palmer. Putnam, $27.95 (400p)

ISBN 978-0-399-17501-5

The Balkans provide the setting for
Palmer’s meticulously crafted third
international thriller (after 2015’s Secrets
of State). State department employee Eric
Petrosian is working in the American
embassy in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia,
when he’s assigned to assist European
Union official Annika Sondergaard, who’s
attempting to implement a new peace
plan intended to keep the country from
slipping back into civil war. Eric teams
with an ex-lover he hasn’t seen in 20 years,
CIA agent Sarah Gold, who wants his help
figuring out why Zoran Dimitrovic, the
leader of a right-wing political party, is
under the con-
trol of the mys-
terious Marko
Barcelona, who
wants to plunge
Bosnia back into
conflict. Several
subplots, one
involving a
researcher back
at CIA head-
quarters and
another about a priest who tends bees at
a monastery add interest when the plot
threatens to bog down in the labyrinthine
politics of the region. Palmer’s 25 years in
the U.S. Foreign Service serve him well
in this suspenseful, briskly paced novel.
Author tour. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen
Agency. (May)

A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall
Hannah Dennison. Minotaur, $24.99 (304p)
ISBN 978-1-250-06550-6

In Dennison’s winning third Honeychurch Hall mystery (after 2015’s Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall), antiques expert Kat Stanford and her mother, Iris, discover a double-hide, a secret room behind a secret room, containing the earthly remains of Pandora Haslam-Grimley, last seen alive in 1958 at the Honeychurch midsummer ball. The cold case takes a personal turn for Kat when the police suspect that Iris may have had a hand in Pandora’s death. With an art theft, an incriminating copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, heart-shaped necklaces, a hidden cache of silver coins, and failed love affairs galore, the convoluted plot takes some effort to follow, and it’s sometimes hard to keep the relationships among all the players straight. The joy of this series lies in its delightfully eccentric characters, including the ever-sur-prising Iris, aka Krystalle Storm, bestselling author of steamy romance novels, and Kat herself, a smart, relatable heroine with questionable taste in men. Dennison’s affection for Devonshire, its history and people, is obvious on every page. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency. (May)

SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Dragon

Don Mann and Ralph Pezzullo. LB/Mulholland,

$26 (304p) ISBN 978-0-316-37753-9

In Mann and Pezzullo’s intermittently exciting sixth SEAL Team Six thriller (after 2015’s Hunt the Fox), Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Michael Crocker sets out to rescue James Ryan Dawkins, an aerospace engineer kidnapped and forced to develop a North Korean long-range ICBM capable of striking the United States. Crocker must also track a source of near-perfect counterfeit U.S. currency. Insider jargon and an alphabet soup of SIGs, AKs, NVGs, and SDVs bring the military aspects ably to life, but off-mission scenes ring flat. The

Fire War is a
suspenseful, gripping
and unnerving
examination of the
paradoxes of power,
the price of liberty,
and the dictates of
conscience. The world
you live in will never
look the same again.
INTRIGUING,
FUTURISTIC
THRILLER...