Upcoming: A MAN NAMED DOLL by Jonathan Ames (Mulholland/Pushkin)

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AmesJ-AManNamedDollUSJonathan Ames seems to have quite a varied publishing history: he’s published two humorous novels, somewhat akin to Jeeves & Wooster or Withnail & I — Wake Up, Sir! and The Extra Man — and also the brutal noir You Were Never Really Here (which was adapted into the Joaquin Phoenix-starring movie of the same name). This year, he returns with A Man Named Doll, the first in a new LA-based noir series:

An idiosyncratic private detective Happy Doll and his quest to help a dying friend who is running out of time in sun-blinded Los Angeles

Happy Doll is a charming, if occasionally inexpert, private detective living just one sheer cliff drop beneath the Hollywood sign with his beloved half-Chihuahua half-Terrier, George. A veteran of both the Navy and LAPD, Doll supplements his meager income as a P.I. by working through the night at a local Thai spa that offers its clients a number of special services. Armed with his sixteen-inch steel telescopic baton, biting dry humor, and just a bit of a hero complex, the ex-cop sets out to protect the women who work there from clients who have trouble understanding the word “no.”

AmesJ-AManNamedDollUKDoll gets by just fine following his two basic rules: bark loudly and act first. But when things get out-of-hand with one particularly violent patron, even he finds himself wildly out of his depth, and then things take an even more dangerous twist when an old friend from his days as a cop shows up at his door with a bullet in his gut.

A MAN NAMED DOLL is more than just a fascinating introduction to one truly singular character, it is a highly addictive and completely unpredictable joyride through the sensuous and violent streets of LA.

Jonathan Ames’s A Man Named Doll is due to be published by Mulholland Books in North America (April 20th) and Pushkin Vertigo in the UK (April 29th).

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Upcoming: SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN by Alexandra Kleeman (Fourth Estate)

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KleemanA-SomethingNewUnderTheSunUSI stumbled across this in a catalogue, and the synopsis caught my attention. Alexandra Kleeman‘s second novel — following the debut novel You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine and the short story collection Intimations — looks really interesting. Something New Under the Sun is a near-future story that takes a look at the darker side of Hollywood. Really looking forward to reading this. Here’s the full synopsis:

A novelist discovers the dark side of Hollywood and reckons with ambition, corruption, and connectedness in the age of environmental collapse and ecological awakening…

East Coast novelist Patrick Hamlin has come to Hollywood with simple goals in mind: overseeing the production of a film adaptation of one of his books, preventing starlet Cassidy Carter’s disruptive behavior from derailing said production, and turning this last-ditch effort at career resuscitation into the sort of success that will dazzle his wife and daughter back home. But California is not as he imagined: Drought, wildfire, and corporate corruption are omnipresent, and the company behind a mysterious new brand of synthetic water seems to be at the root of it all. Partnering with Cassidy — after having been her reluctant chauffeur for weeks — the two of them investigate the sun-scorched city’s darker crevices, where they discover that catastrophe resembles order until the last possible second.

In this poised and all-too-timely story, Alexandra Kleeman grapples with the corruption of our environment in the age of alternative facts. She does so with a meticulous and deeply felt accounting of our very human anxieties, liabilities, dependencies, and, ultimately, our responsibility to truth.

Alexandra Kleeman’s Something New Under the Sun is due to be published by Hogarth in North America (August 3rd) and Fourth Estate in the UK (June 10th).

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Upcoming: FOUR LOST CITIES: A SECRET HISTORY OF THE URBAN AGE by Annalee Newitz (WW Norton)

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NewitzA-FourLostCitiesUSPerhaps best known to readers of CR as the author of the acclaimed novels Autonomous and The Future of Another Timeline, Annalee Newitz is taking a different tack for their next book: Four Lost Cities. I first learned of this book from a podcast interview with the author, quite some time ago. (I wish I could remember which one.) It is a book that explores four abandoned cities and tries to ascertain why their inhabitants abandoned them. Here’s the full synopsis:

A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history — and figure out why people abandoned them.

In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.

Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often anonymous workers — slaves, women, immigrants, and manual laborers — who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia.

Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate.

Annalee Newitz’s Four Lost Cities is due to be published by W. W. Norton in North America and in the UK, on February 2nd, 2021.

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Upcoming: ASCENSION by Oliver Harris (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Little, Brown)

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HarrisO-2-AscensionUSA couple of years ago, Oliver Harris introduced readers to his new protagonist, British spy Elliot Kane, in A Shadow Intelligence. This year, Kane returns in Ascension, which sees the agent pulled into a mystery surrounding the death of a close friend. Here’s the synopsis:

British spy Elliot Kane is forced out of semi-retirement to investigate a colleague’s suspicious death on Ascension Island, a remote and rocky outpost of the British military in the middle of the Atlantic.

Despite uncovering a deep plot to incite a new world war, Elliot Kane has been on probation with the service since his misadventures in Kazakhstan. Having taken up a job teaching college literature and linguistics, he surprisingly enjoys living a conventional life and wonders if he would even go back to spycraft. Then a colleague from an ages-ago mission reaches out with a request. One of her tech specialists was on a long-term mission, in deep cover, but has suddenly killed himself. The agency is afraid to finish this vital mission without knowing what prompted this seemingly healthy man to take his own life. The carrot in this offer is helping his old friend; the stick is a worse punishment from the Agency if he doesn’t comply. So Elliott poses as an academic researcher and heads to one of the most remote places on the planet, Ascension Island. 

Arriving on a rocky, barely livable island located in the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Brazil and Angola, Kane is unsure whom to trust and why this lonely outpost is so important to the British military… until he uncovers dangerous secrets that lead straight back to London’s highest offices.

Oliver Harris’s Ascension is due to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in North America (July 13th) and Little, Brown in the UK (July 1st).

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Upcoming: OLYMPUS, TEXAS by Stacey Swann (Random House/W&N)

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SwannS-OlympusTexasUSIn 2021, Stacey Swann‘s “bighearted debut”, Olympus, Texas will arrive on shelves in North America and in the UK. I spotted it in a catalogue, and I’m very intrigued by it — it has “technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot”, and has been described as “Wildly entertaining” by Richard Russo, who happens to be one of my favourite authors. So, yeah. Very much looking forward to giving this a try. here’s the synopsis:

The Briscoe family is once again the talk of their small town when March returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother’s wife. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with open arms. Her husband’s own past affairs have made her tired of being the long-suffering spouse. Is it, perhaps, time for a change? Within days of March’s arrival, someone is dead, marriages are upended, and even the strongest of alliances are shattered. In the end, the ties that hold them together might be exactly what drag them all down.

An expansive tour de force, Olympus, Texas cleverly weaves elements of classical mythology into a thoroughly modern family saga, rich in drama and psychological complexity. After all, at some point, don’t we all wonder: What good is this destructive force we call love?

Stacey Swann’s Olympus, Texas is due to be published by Random House in North America and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK, on May 4th, 2021.

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Upcoming: AFTER THE FALL by Ben Rhodes (Random House)

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RhodesB-AfterTheFallUSBen Rhodes was one of President Obama’s longest-serving aides, and is a frequent contributor to various Crooked Media podcasts — in particularly, Pod Save the World. He is also the author of the excellent The World As It Is, his memoir of government service and also examination of foreign policy during the Obama years. In 2021, he has a new book coming out, which I am very eager to read: After The Fall: Being American in the World We Made.

Why is the world turning away from liberal democracy? And what can we do about it? The former deputy national security advisor to President Barack Obama and New York Times bestselling author of The World as It Is travels the globe in a deeply personal, beautifully observed quest for answers.

In 2017, as Ben Rhodes was helping former president Barack Obama begin his next chapter, the legacy they worked to build for eight years was being taken apart. To understand what was happening in his own country, Rhodes decided to look outward, at the wider world. Over the next three years, he traveled to dozens of countries, meeting with politicians, dissidents, and activists confronting the same forces that produced the Trump presidency: spreading nationalism, authoritarianism, and disinformation. Along the way, he was spied on by former Mossad operatives and the Chinese government, met with Hong Kong protesters and Russian oppositionists, and found people from Europe to Asia to the United States struggling to reconcile their own identities with the crude nationalism of their leaders — all while pursuing new strategies to fight back.

Equal parts memoir and reporting, After the Fall is an ambitious and essential work of discovery. Throughout, Rhodes reflects on how the 2008 financial crisis completed a collapse of public confidence in America, globalization, and democracy itself, opening a door to the wave of strongman leaders who have transformed our world — men like Viktor Orban in Hungary, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Xi Jinping in China. He wrestles with how peoples’ yearning for identity and belonging has been weaponized by nationalists. And he learns from a diverse set of characters — from Obama to rebels to rising politicians–how we can choose a more hopeful story going forward.

Ben Rhodes’s After the Fall is due to be published by Random House in North America, on June 1st, 2021. (I couldn’t find any details of a UK edition at the time of writing.)

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Upcoming: THE NINTH METAL by Benjamin Percy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Hodder)

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PercyB-CC1-NinthMetalIn June, readers will be able to enjoy a new novel by Benjamin Percy: The Ninth Metal is the first novel in the Comet Cycle series. I’m a big fan of Percy’s fiction, non-fiction, and comics, so this was always going to be on my most-anticipated list for 2021. Here’s the synopsis:

An explosive, breakout speculative thriller in which a powerful new metal arrives on Earth in the wake of a meteor shower, triggering a massive new “gold rush” in the Midwest and turning life as we know it on its head. The first of a cycle of novels set in a shared universe.

It began with a comet. When it came into view on a close pass by Earth, people took off work, gathering on sidewalks and in parking lots to watch it burn by. One year later, Earth spun into the debris field the comet left behind. The worldwide effects of the meteor shower are yet to be known, but in the first book of the Comet Cycle, Minnesota seemed to bear the brunt of the damage: meteors annihilated barns and silos, cratered pastures and hardwood forests, tore up county highways, and evaporated one small town in an instant.

At first, it is a colossal disaster. Until the people of Minnesota notice deposits of unusual metal in the comet’s debris. Not gold, silver, copper, tin, iron or any of the noble metals, it’s a previously unknown ninth metal: omnimetal. With high-density charging capabilities and conductive properties that can change the world as an energy source, the deposit might be the best thing that ever happened to the northern section of the state, where the economy has been dying for a long time. Or it might be the worst.

It is then that the “gold rush” begins. Farmers sell their metal-rich land for millions. Comet-worshipping cults set up compounds and repeat the phrase “Metal is” as their mantra. Roughnecks flood the town, hungry for work and trouble. Prostitutes flourish. Businesses rise. Families are divided. Saudis bid against the Chinese on land grabs. Bodies lie in shallow graves. As witnessed when oil was discovered in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota, the heartland in our story goes from the middle of nowhere to the center of everything. And one family — the Frontiers — hopes to control it all.

Benjamin Percy’s The Ninth Metal is due to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in North America (June 1st) and Hodder in the UK (June 10th). The second novel in the series — The Unfamiliar Garden — is due out in January 2022.

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Upcoming: TEN LOW by Stark Holborn (Titan)

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HolbornS-TenLowI first discovered Stark Holborn via the excellent Nunslinger novel, which was initially released in a serialized format. More recently, I very much enjoyed the novella Triggernometry. This year, Holborn returns with Ten Low, a new science fiction novel, which I’m really looking forward to reading:

Ten Low is an ex-army medic, one of many convicts eking out a living at the universe’s edge. She’s desperate to escape her memories of the interstellar war, and the crimes she committed, but trouble seems to follow wherever she goes. One night, attempting to atone for her sins, she pulls a teenage girl – the sole survivor – from the wreck of a spaceship. But Gabriella Ortiz is no ordinary girl. The result of a military genetics programme, she is a decorated Army General, from the opposing side of the war to Ten. Worse, Ten realises the crash was an assassination attempt, and that someone wants the Ortiz dead…

The pair bury their hatreds and strike an uneasy deal to smuggle the General off-world. Their road won’t be easy: they must cross the moon’s lawless wastes, facing military hit squads, bandits and the one-eyed leader of an all-female road gang, in a frantic race to get the General to safety. But something else waits in the darkness at the universe’s edge. Something that threatens to reveal Ten’s worst nightmare: the truth of who she really is and what she is running from.

Stark Holborn’s Ten Low is due to be published by Titan Books in North America and in the UK, on June 1st, 2021.

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Upcoming: THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD by T.L. Huchu (Tor Books)

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HuchuTL-EN1-LibraryOfTheDeadUSI think I first heard of T. L. Huchu‘s upcoming debut novel, The Library of the Dead, after Ben Aaronovitch blurbed it. The first in a new series, Edinburgh Nights, it looks like a great new urban fantasy series that I’m very much looking forward to trying. I’m particularly looking forward to the Edinburgh setting — I haven’t read much (urban) fantasy set there. Pitched as “Sixth Sense meets Stranger Things“, here’s the synopsis:

A sharp contemporary fantasy following a precocious and cynical teen as she explores the shadowy magical underside of modern Edinburgh.

WHEN GHOSTS TALK
SHE WILL LISTEN

HuchuTL-EN1-LibraryOfTheDeadUKRopa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children – leaving them husks, empty of joy and strength. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will rock her world.

Ropa will dice with death as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. And although underground Edinburgh hides a wealth of dark secrets, she also discovers an occult library, a magical mentor and some unexpected allies.

Yet as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?

T.L. Huchu’s The Library of the Dead is due to be published by Tor Books in North America (June 1st) and in the UK (February 4th).

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Upcoming: STEVE KERR: A LIFE by Scott Howard-Cooper (William Morrow)

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HowardCooperS-SteveKerrUSHCLast year, I started reading a lot of books about the NBA. In particular, I read four books about the Golden State Warriors — one each on Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Andre Iguodala (a superb memoir), and another that covered KD’s winning tenure with and departure from the team. Like pretty much everyone else with even an slight interest in basketball, I also watched The Last Dance. In all of these, Steve Kerr featured quite prominently — as a teammate of Michael Jordan’s, and later as the successful coach of the Warriors. He was, however, not the focal subject of any of these books or TV series. This year, Scott Howard-Cooper‘s biography of Kerr is due to hit shelves, and I’m very much looking forward to reading it. Here’s the synopsis:

Few individuals have had a career as storied — and improbable — as Steve Kerr. He’s been part of eight NBA titles, General Manager of a franchise, and a respected broadcaster. Playing under three Hall of Fame coaches, including Phil Jackson, and a fourth destined for enshrinement, Gregg Popovich, Kerr was on five championship teams before winning three more as one of the most accomplished coaches in the NBA, with three NBA titles. Kerr’s teammates have included the greatest of the greatest: Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, and Dennis Rodman.

In this fascinating biography, Scott Howard-Cooper looks at the man and the facets of his unusual life that have made him a legend, from his childhood growing up in the Middle East as the son of academics, to the tragedy of his father’s murder by terrorists; the inauspicious years of his early career at the University of Arizona and in the NBA; his championship-winning seasons with the Chicago Bulls and the Antonio Spurs; his success as head coach of the Golden State Warriors, leading the team to the NBA title in his first year, and adding two more championships in the next four seasons. 

The only NBA coach other than Red Auerbach to lead a team to the Finals five consecutive seasons, Kerr seems destined for the Basketball Hall of Fame. Steve Kerr is his incredible story, offering insights into the man, the game he personifies, and what it takes to be — and make — a champion.

Scott Howard-Cooper’s Steve Kerr is due to be published by William Morrow on June 15th, in North America and in the UK.

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