This New Books post comes rather quickly after the previous, I know, but I’ve decided to post them more frequently — probably when I hit 15 books (as here), because I want to let people know about the upcoming books ASAP.

Featuring: Ben Aaronovitch, Binyamin Appelbaum, Andrew Bacevich, Myke Cole, D.K. Fields, Oliver Harris, Justin D Hill, Ian McDonald, David Poyer, Kate Quinn, Kate Racculia, Lina Rather, Priya Sharma, Katherine Stansfield, Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Ben Aaronovitch, THE OCTOBER MAN (Gollancz)

Trier is famous for wine, Romans and for being Germany’s oldest city. So when a man is found dead with, his body impossibly covered in a fungal rot, the local authorities know they are out of their depth.

Fortunately this is Germany, where there are procedures for everything.

Enter Investigator Tobias Winter, whose aim is to get in, deal with the problem, and get out with the minimum of fuss, personal danger and paperwork. With the help of frighteningly enthusiastic local cop, Vanessa Sommer, he’s quick to link the first victim to a group of ordinary middle aged men – and to realise they may have accidentally reawakened a bloody conflict from a previous century. But the rot is still spreading, literally and with the suspect list extending to people born before Frederick the Great solving the case may mean unearthing the city’s secret magical history.

… so long as that history doesn’t kill them first.

The latest novella by the author of the Peter Grant series. This one takes the story out of the UK, and introduces us to Tobias Winter — a German cop of the supernatural. I think it can work as an introduction to the world, too, in case you’re looking for something a bit shorter than a full-length novel (although, Ben’s books are brisk reads, too). The October Man is out now, published by Gollancz in the UK and Subterranean Press in North America.

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Binyamin Appelbaum, THE ECONOMISTS’ HOUR (Little, Brown)

In this fascinating character-driven history, a New York Times editorial writer and Pulitzer Prize finalist spotlights the American economists who championed the rise of markets and fundamentally reshaped the modern world.

Before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power — first in the United States and then around the world as their ideas inspired nations to curb government, unleash corporations, and hasten globalization.

Milton Friedman’s libertarian ideals, Arthur Laffer’s supply-side economics and Paul Volcker’s austere campaign against inflation all left a profound mark on American life. So did lesser-known figures like Walter Oi, a blind economist whose calculations influenced President Nixon’s decision to end military conscription; Alfred Kahn, who deregulated air travel; and Thomas Schelling, who put a dollar value on human life.

The economists promised steady growth and broadly-shared prosperity, but they failed to deliver. Instead, the single-minded embrace of markets has come at the expense of soaring economic inequality, the faltering health of liberal democracy, and the prospects of future generations.

Timely, engaging, and expertly researched, The Economists’ Hour is a “powerful must-read” (Mohamed A. El-Erian, New York Times bestselling author) about the rise and fall of a revolution-and a compelling call for people to retake control of markets.

Hadn’t heard about this until I got a NetGalley invite to read it. Sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a try. The Economists’ Hour is due to be published by Little, Brown in North America (September 3rd) and Picador in the UK (September 5th).

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Andrew Bacevich, THE AGE OF ILLUSIONS (Henry Holt)

A thought-provoking and penetrating account of the post-Cold war follies and delusions that culminated in the age of Donald Trump…

When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world’s “indispensable nation,” its “sole superpower,” the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable.

In the decades to come, Americans would put that claim to the test. They would embrace the promise of globalization as a source of unprecedented wealth while embarking on wide-ranging military campaigns to suppress disorder and enforce American values abroad, confident in the ability of U.S. forces to defeat any foe. Meanwhile, they placed all their bets on the White House to deliver on the promise of their Cold War triumph: unequaled prosperity, lasting peace, and absolute freedom.

In The Age of Illusions, bestselling author Andrew Bacevich takes us from that moment of seemingly ultimate victory to the age of Trump, telling an epic tale of folly and delusion. Writing with his usual eloquence and vast knowledge, he explains how, within a quarter of a century, the United States ended up with gaping inequality, permanent war, moral confusion, and an increasingly angry and alienated population, as well, of course, as the strangest president in American history.

I’m a big fan of Bacevich’s writing — I think I’ve been following his work for about 11 years, now — and each new book, whether a collection of articles or a wholly new work, is something I look forward to. I’ll be reading this very soon. The Age of Illusions is due to be published by Henry Holt in January 2020, in North America and in the UK.

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Review copy received from the publisher

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Myke Cole, THE KILLING LIGHT (Tor.com)

Heloise and her allies are marching on the Imperial Capital. The villagers, the Kipti, and the Red Lords are united only in their loyalty to Heloise, though dissenting voices are many and they are loud.

The unstable alliance faces internal conflicts and external strife, yet they’re united in their common goal. But when the first of the devils start pouring through a rent in the veil between worlds, Heloise must strike a bargain with an unlikely ally, or doom her people to death and her world to ruin.

The third novella in the Sacred Throne trilogy. I’m looking forward to reading this: I enjoyed the first book, and now that I have the other two, I’ll probably read them back-to-back in the near future. The Killing Light is due to be published by Tor.com in North America and in the UK, on November 13, 2019.

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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D.K. Fields, WIDOW’S WELCOME (Head of Zeus)

There’s power in stories.

This is a story of power.

Dead bodies aren’t unusual in the alleyways of Fenest, capital of the Union of Realms. Especially not in an election year, when the streets swell with crowds from near and far. Muggings, brawls gone bad, debts collected – Detective Cora Gorderheim has seen it all. Until she finds a Wayward man with his mouth sewn shut.

His body has been arranged precisely by the killer and left conspicuously, waiting to be found. Cora fears this is not only a murder, but a message.

As she digs into the dead man’s past, she finds herself drawn into the most dangerous event in the Union: the election. In a world where stories win votes, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to silence this man. Who has stopped his story being told?

This is the first novel in a new series by D.K. Fields — a nom-de-plume for David Towsey and Katherine Stansfield (see below), both of whom are fantastic authors and lovely people. I’m really looking forward to reading this novel, and will do so very soon. Widow’s Welcome is out now, published by Head of Zeus in the UK.

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Oliver Harris, A SHADOW INTELLIGENCE (Little, Brown)

The intelligence service puts two years and over £100k into the training of new field officers. You’re shown how to steal cars, strip weapons, hack bank accounts. There are courses on the use of blackmail and improvised explosives, two workshops solely dedicated to navigating by the stars. But nothing about what I had heard one old spy call whiplash. No one tells you how to go home.

There is a dark side to MI6 that needs men like Elliot Kane – mercurial, inquisitive, free floating. He’s spent fifteen years managing events overseas that never make the papers, deniable and deeply effective. Kane is a ghost in his own life, picking up and dropping personalities as each new cover story comes into play. But when a woman he loves, Joanna Lake, vanishes without a trace in Kazakhstan, he is forced centre stage.

Drawn ever deeper into a realm of deception, Kane moves from merely infiltrating events to steering them. He’s used to a new mode of hybrid psychological warfare – but snowbound Kazakhstan presents unique challenges. Poised between China, Russia and the West, dictatorship and democracy, state intelligence and an increasingly powerful world of private agencies, it’s impossible to work out who is manipulating who. And Kane’s not the only one trying to figure out where Joanna Lake has gone or what she learned before disappearing.

Unable to trust anyone, hunted by his own colleagues, and with the life of someone he loves at stake, Kane needs to work out who is driving events, and why…

My partner recommended Harris’s Nick Belsey series to me. I haven’t read any of them, yet, but I nevertheless do have them all. We bought this fourth novel, a stand alone, when we were in the UK, in July. Really looking forward to reading them all — my return to London reignited my interest in reading about the city, and also novels set in the city. (So, I’ll hopefully also be doing a Peter Grant/Rivers of London binge-read, soon.) A Shadow Intelligence is out now in the UK, published by Little, Brown; it is due to be published in North America by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in April 2020.

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Justin D Hill, CADIAN HONOUR (Black Library)

For ten thousand years, Cadia stood as a bastion against the daemonic tide spewing forth from the Eye of Terror. But now the Fortress World lies in ruins, its armies decimated in the wake of Abaddon the Despoiler and his Thirteenth Black Crusade. Those who survived, though haunted by the loss of their beloved homeworld, remain bloodied and unbarred, fighting ruthlessly in the Emperor’s name.

Amongst them is the indomitable Sergeant Minka Lesk. Sent to the capital world of Potence, Lesk and the Cadian 101st company soon discover that a rot runs through the very heart of the seemingly peaceful world. Lesk knows she must excise this taint of Chaos, for it is not only her life and those of her company at stake, but also the honour of Cadia itself.

This is the second novel in Minka Lesk series, following Cadia Stands. I have the first novel, so I really should get around to reading them both. Looking forward to it. Cadian Honour is out now, published by Black Library in North America and in the UK.

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Ian McDonald, THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE (Tor.com)

Remember: Lady Luna knows a thousand ways to kill you, but family is what you know. Family is what works.

Cariad Corcoran has a new sister who is everything she is not: tall, beautiful, confident. They’re unlikely allies and even unlikelier sisters, but they’re determined to find the moon’s first footprint, even if the lunar frontier is doing its best to kill them before they get there.

This is a prequel of sorts to McDonald’s critically-acclaimed Luna series (published by Tor Books in North America and Gollancz in the UK). I haven’t yet had the chance to read the full-length novels, so this could be an excellent way into the series. I’ll try to read it ASAP. The Menace from Farside is due to be publisher by Tor.com in North America and in the UK, on November 12th, 2019.

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Review copy received from publisher

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David Poyer, OVERTHROWN (St. Martin’s Press)

The United States and their Allied forces struggle to survive world war with China in this compelling, realistic thriller, the next in the Dan Lenson series

World War III continues in Overthrow, the next novel in the acclaimed series featuring Admiral Dan Lenson as the Allies converge against China, North Korea, and Iran in an explosive series of events. Admiral Lenson leads Operation Rupture, the invasion of South China, in a bid to finally end the war and restore peace. Meanwhile, Captain Cheryl Staurulakis fights to take a radical new “super ship” to sea, though its power and capability may introduce more risk than reward. In Washington, Dan’s wife Blair conducts secret negotiations with a rebellious faction in Beijing, hoping to bring an end to the war, but her plans may be foiled by those who want outright revenge on China, not peace with them. In western China, Teddy Oberg’s guerrilla band grows into a major insurgency, and the former SEAL master chief embraces his new role as an Islamic resistance leader. Sergeant Hector Ramos raises the flag of freedom in Taiwan while fighting his own personal demons, and in Seattle Dan’s daughter, Nan Lenson, fights to save the world from a dangerous new epidemic. But as the Allies plot an endgame to the war, the complicated dance of global warfare, on land and at sea, will finally trigger the nuclear Armageddon the entire world has feared for nearly a century.

When this arrived in the mail, I thought it sounded like it could be rather entertaining. It is, however, the 19th book in a series of which I’ve read none… No idea how important it is to have read any of the previous books, but I’ll give it a try when I can. Overthrown is due to be published by St. Martin’s Press in North America and in the UK, on December 3rd, 2019.

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Review copy received from the publisher

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Kate Quinn, THE HUNTRESS (Harper Collins UK)

On the icy edge of Soviet Russia, bold and reckless Nina Markova joins the infamous Night Witches – an all-female bomber regiment. But when she is downed behind enemy lines, Nina must use all her wits to survive her encounter with a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress.

British war correspondent Ian Graham abandons journalism to become a Nazi hunter, yet one target eludes him: the Huntress. And Nina Markova is the only witness to escape her alive.

In post-war Boston, seventeen-year-old Jordan McBride is increasingly disquieted by the soft-spoken German widow who becomes her new stepmother. Delving into her past, Jordan slowly realizes that a Nazi killer may be hiding in plain sight.

The Huntress created quite the buzz when it was first published. I haven’t had the chance to get to it, though, even though I really want to read it. The novel is out now in paperback in North America (William Morrow) and will be published in September in the UK (Harper Collins), I’m really looking forward to reading it (I may read this next, so a review should be up pretty soon if all goes according to plan).

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Kate Racculia, TUESDAY MOONEY WORE BLACK (Harper Collins UK)

You are cordially invited to play a game…

Tuesday Mooney loves a puzzle. So when an eccentric billionaire drops dead, leaving behind a fiendish treasure hunt – open to anyone – to his fortune, Tuesday can’t resist.

Although she works best alone, she soon finds herself partnering up with best friend Dex (money manager by day, karaoke-zealot by night) and the mysterious Nathanial Arches, eldest son of a wealthy family who held a long-running feud with the dead man.

As the clues are solved, excitement across the city reaches fever pitch – but nothing is as it seems, and the puzzle-within-a-puzzle holds something much darker than a vast fortune at its heart…

Thought this sounded interesting. Tuesday Mooney Wore Black is due to be published by Harper Collins in the UK (October 21st), and Houghton Mifflin in North America (as Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts — on October 8th)

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Lina Rather, SISTERS OF THE VAST BLACK (Tor.com)

The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita captain their living ship into the reaches of space…

Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own.

When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care — and that of the galactic diaspora — are in danger. And not from void beyond, but from the nascent Central Governance and the Church itself.

This novella sounds really interesting, and I think I’ll read very soon. Sisters of the Vast Black is due to be published by Tor.com in North America and in the UK, on October 29th, 2019.

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Review copy received from the publisher

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Priya Sharma, ORMESHADOW (Tor.com)

Burning with resentment and intrigue, this fantastical family drama invites readers to dig up the secrets of the Belman family, and wonder whether myths and legends are real enough to answer for a history of sin.

Uprooted from Bath by his father’s failures, Gideon Belman finds himself stranded on Ormeshadow farm, an ancient place of chalk and ash and shadow. The land crests the Orme, a buried, sleeping dragon that dreams resentment, jealousy, estrangement, death. Or so the folklore says. Growing up in a house that hates him, Gideon finds his only comforts in the land. Gideon will live or die by the Orme, as all his family has.

This novella has been getting a good amount of pre-publication buzz, so I’m looking forward to reading it soon. Ormeshadow is due to be published by Tor.com in North America and in the UK, on October 15th, 2019.

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Katherine Stansfield, THE MAGPIE TREE (Allison & Busby)

Jamaica Inn, 1844: the talk is of witches. A boy has vanished in the woods of Trethevy on the North Cornish coast, and a reward is offered for his return. Shilly has had enough of such dark doings, but her new companion, the woman who calls herself Anna Drake, insists they investigate. Anna wants to open a detective agency, and the reward would fund it. They soon learn of a mysterious pair of strangers who have likely taken the boy, and of Saint Nectan who, legend has it, kept safe the people of the woods. As Shilly and Anna seek the missing child, the case takes another turn – murder. Something is stirring in the woods and old sins have come home to roost.

We also picked this one up when we were in the UK in July. (We took lighter bags, so we could fill up the extra baggage weight limit with books we bought on our trip. What did you expect, really?) This is Stansfield’s second Cornish Mystery novel, and we’re big fans of the books here at CR. The Magpie Tree is out now, published by Allison & Busby in the UK.

The third novel in the series, The Mermaid’s Call, is due out in September.

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Adrian Tchaikovsky, MADE THINGS (Tor.com)

Making friends has never been so important.

Welcome to Fountains Parish — a cesspit of trade and crime, where ambition curls up to die and desperation grows on its cobbled streets like mold on week-old bread.

Coppelia is a street thief, a trickster, a low-level con artist. But she has something other thieves don’t… tiny puppet-like companions: some made of wood, some of metal. They don’t entirely trust her, and she doesn’t entirely understand them, but their partnership mostly works.

After a surprising discovery shakes their world to the core, Coppelia and her friends must re-examine everything they thought they knew about their world, while attempting to save their city from a seemingly impossible new threat.

I’m always looking forward to new books by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I read this pretty much as soon as I got the DRC, and it’s yet another imaginative and engaging fantasy story. I’ll have a full review up, soon. Made Things is due to be published by Tor.com in North America and in the UK, on November 5th, 2019.

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Review copy received from the publisher