"Pakistan is torn apart by riots in the streets. The CIA sends Pakistan expert David Haaris to meet with leaders of the military intelligence apparatus which all but controls the country, to try to head off what appears to be the disintegration of the government. But Haaris has other ideas. After disguising himself, he beheads the president in front of a mob of ten thousand people and declares himself the new Messiah. He says he will bring peace and stability to the country by allying with the Taliban. At that moment, miles to the south on the border with Afghanistan, one of four stolen nuclear weapons is detonated. Pakistan has become the most dangerous nation in the world. Legendary former director of the CIA Kirk McGarvey is given a mission--assassinate the Messiah, code name: The Fourth Horseman"--

An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor, The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto, amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its pages, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now. A young couple on the brink of marriage, the charming Veblen and her fiancé Paul, a brilliant neurologist, find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each others dysfunctional families, to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress, to an intimate tête-à-tête with a very charismatic squirrel. Veblen (named after the iconoclastic economist Thorstein Veblen, who coined the term conspicuous consumption) is one of the most refreshing heroines in recent fiction. Not quite liberated from the burdens of her hypochondriac, narcissistic mother and her institutionalized father, Veblen is an amateur translator and freelance self; in other words, she's adrift. Meanwhile, Paul, the product of good hippies who were bad parents, finds his ambition soaring. His medical research has led to the development of a device to help minimize battlefield brain trauma, an invention that gets him swept up in a high-stakes deal with the Department of Defense, a Bizarro World that McKenzie satirizes with granular specificity. As Paul is swept up by the promise of fame and fortune, Veblen heroically keeps the peace between all the damaged parties involved in their upcoming wedding, until she finds herself falling for someone, or something, else. Throughout, Elizabeth McKenzie asks: Where do our families end and we begin? How do we stay true to our ideals? And what is that squirrel really  thinking? Replete with deadpan photos and sly appendices, The Portable Veblen  is at once an honest inquiry into what we look for in love and an electrifying reading experience.

Every year, Carole Shipley looked forward to her wedding anniversary. But then a celebratory trip to Mexico for the occasion with her husband and friends ended in the unsolved kidnapping of her infant daughter, Samantha. Now, fifteen years after that horrific time, divorced and isolated, Carole is forced to relive the kidnapping by reporters who call every year on the anniversary of Samantha's disappearance. However, this year when the phone rings, Carole hears the sweet voice of a girl claiming to be her long-lost daughter.

James Harrison has recently moved to a restored hunting lodge in Sutherland with his private nurse Gloria Dainty. When Hamish visits Mr. Harrison to welcome him to the neighborhood, the old man treats him very rudely. Gloria apologizes for her employer's behavior, and Hamish takes the plunge and invites her out for dinner. On the appointed evening, Hamish waits for Gloria at the restaurant. She never shows up. Four days later, her body washes up on the beach near Braikie.

Reclusive literary legend M. M. 'Mimi' Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years. But after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff-style ponzi scheme, she's flat broke. Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. The prickly Mimi reluctantly complies, with a few stipulations: No Ivy-Leaguers or English majors. Must drive, cook, tidy. Computer whiz. Good with kids. Quiet, discreet, sane. When Alice Whitley arrives at the Banning mansion, she's put to work right away-as a full-time companion to Frank, the writer's eccentric nine-year-old, a boy with the wit of Noel Coward, the wardrobe of a 1930s movie star, and very little in common with his fellow fourth-graders.

Kachemak Winkel's mother used to tell him that Alaska doesn't forgive mistakes. A lot of mistakes where made the day she died in a plane crash with Kache's father and brother-- and Kache still feels responsible. He fled Alaska for good, but now his aunt Snag insists on his return. Returning to his family's cabin in the woods, he finds smoke rising from the chimney and a mysterious Russian woman hiding from her own troubled past. Nadia has stayed there, afraid and utterly isolated, for ten years. Together, can they find forgiveness?

Twenty-two-year-old Siobhán O'Sullivan runs her late parents' bistro in small-town Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland. After discovering a well-dressed dead man sitting at one of the tables with pink barber scissors sticking out of his chest one morning, Siobhán races to save the family bistro and protect the people she loves. First novel, 304pp., Auth res: Chicago, IL; Ireland

Jean has spent too long as the perfect wife, keeping secrets about the crime her husband allegedly committed. With her husband dead, Jean decides to speak up. But Jean has her own secrets to keep as she bends the truth. DEBUT NOVEL, 336pp., 100K, Auth res: Oxford, UK

Emilie Imhof is the only female crew member onboard the 'Hindenburg.' As she travels through the airship's many rooms, she quickly learns that every passenger has secrets to keep. The passengers' alternating perspectives reveal several shocking truths as the airship makes the three-day transatlantic flight that will end in disaster. Who will survive? 336pp., Auth res: Nashville, TN

Amy Adam may be Joe Goldberg's opposite, bust his obsession with his Mooney Books new-hire still inspires Joe to move to Los Angeles when Amy disappears without a trace. In Los Angeles, Joe collides with an annoying stand-up comedian, a greedy granny, and a promiscuous ghostwriter. Even after befriending a surgically enhanced heiress named Love Quinn, Joe cannot stop thinking about Amy. Is Joe's true love somehow closer than he thinks? 448pp., 300K, Auth res: Los Angeles, CA

Atlanta divorce attorney Paula Vauss grew up listening to her storyteller mother, Kai, concoct new stories for their wandering lifestyle with rapture. Then Kai was sent to prison and Paula was sent to foster care. When Paula receives a mysterious letter from her mother, whom she hasn't seen in 15 years, Paula receives a shocking surprise teams with her private eye ex-lover to find Kai before time runs out.

On the north coast of Cornwall, an apparent act of mercy is repaid by an arrest for murder. Four young women have been accused of the crime. Inspector Ian Rutledge is told the case is all but closed. Then why hasn’t the killing stopped?

Six-year-old Helen and Ellie are identical twins, but Helen is smarter, more popular, and their mother's favorite. Ellie, on the other hand, requires special instruction at school, is friendless, and is punished at every turn. Until they decide to swap places--just for fun, and just for one day--and Ellie refuses to switch back. Everything of Helen's, from her toys to her friends to her identity, now belongs to her sister. With those around her oblivious to her plight, the girl who used to be Helen loses her sense of self and withdraws into a spiral of behavioral problems, delinquency, and mental illness. In time, she's not even sure of her memory of the switch. Twenty-five years later, she receives a call that threatens to pull her back into her sister's dangerous orbit. Will she take this chance to face her past?

Ginny Carter was once a rising star in TV news, married to a top anchorman, with a three-year-old son and a full and happy life in Beverly Hills -- until her whole world dissolved in a single instant on the freeway two days before Christmas. In the aftermath, she pieces her life back together and tries to find meaning in her existence as a human rights worker in the worst areas around the globe. Then, on the anniversary of the fateful accident -- and wrestling with the lure of death herself -- she meets a boy who will cause her life to change forever yet again. Thirteen-year-old Blue Williams has been living on the streets, abandoned by his family, rarely attending school, and utterly alone. Following her instincts, Ginny reaches out to him. Leery of everyone, he runs from her again and again. But he always returns, and each time, their friendship grows. Blue glows with outsized spirit and an irresistible mix of innocence and wisdom beyond his years. Ginny offers him respect as they form an unusual bond and become the family they each lost. But just as Blue is truly beginning to trust her, she learns of a shocking betrayal that he has been hiding. Is it a wound too deep to heal, or will she be able to fight the battle that will make them both whole again?

In the newest high-stakes historical thriller from master storyteller Davis Bunn, skepticism vies with faith amid the grit and grandeur of post-World-War-I Europe. Its 1923, and a resilient Paris is starting to recover from the ravages of World War I and the Spanish Flu Epidemic. Enter young Muriel Ross, an amateur American photographer tasked with documenting the antiques that her employer, U.S. Senator Tom Bryan, has traveled to France in order to acquire. Although shes exhilarated to have escaped her parents and the confines of their stifling Virginia home, Muriel has lingering questions about why the senator has chosen her for this grand adventure. Nevertheless, she blossoms in her new surroundings, soaking up Parisian culture and capturing the sights and sounds of Paris on her camera. But events take a dangerous turn when she discovers that the senator is on a mission far more momentousand potentially deadlythan a mere shopping trip. At the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Senator Bryan asks Muriel to photograph an astonishing artifact: a piece of the True Cross, discovered by Empress Helenaa historical figure familiar to readers of The Pilgrim . When rumors surface that another fragment has been unearthed, Muriel becomes enmeshed in a covert international alliance dedicated to authenticating the fragmentand protecting it from those who will stop at nothing to steal and discredit it.