Quindlen's NYC, Surreal Murakami, Israeli Novelist: New Fiction

Quindlen's NYC, Surreal Murakami, Israeli Novelist: New Fiction

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Anna Quindlen's portrait of a media star's fall from grace, the return of Michael Tolkin's murderous Hollywood studio exec and short-story collections from Edward P. Jones, Haruki Murakami and Dennis Lehane -- these are some of August's fiction highlights.

``Rise and Shine'' by Anna Quindlen (Random House). A pair of sisters --- Meghan, a hot Manhattan talk-show host, and Bridget, who works at a Bronx women's shelter -- cope with the fallout from Meghan's divorce and career implosion.

``All Aunt Hagar's Children'' by Edward P. Jones (Amistad). Fourteen short stories set among striving African-Americans in Washington, D.C., by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ``The Known World.''

``Return of the Player'' by Michael Tolkin (Grove). The acerbic sequel to the novel Robert Altman adapted into ``The Player'': Hollywood studio exec Griffin Mill, now 52, tries to parlay his pathetic $6 million fortune into the billions he needs to buy a private island.

``The Dissident'' by Nell Freudenberger (Ecco): The second book from the author of the much-lauded ``Lucky Girls'' depicts the culture clash when a Chinese performance artist and political activist takes up residence in the home of a wealthy Beverly Hills family.

``A Woman in Jerusalem'' by A.B. Yehoshua (Harcourt). In this brief, beguiling new work by one of Israel's top novelists, a beautiful, anonymous Russian woman is killed in a suicide bombing and the man hired to identify her finds he's falling in love with who she once was.

``Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman'' by Haruki Murakami (Knopf). This entertaining volume of stories from the Japanese master of the surreal was recently short-listed for Ireland's Frank O'Connor Award, the world's richest prize for short stories.

``The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs'' by Irvine Welch (Norton). The Scottish author of ``Trainspotting'' offers not a sex manual but a portrait of a rivalry pitting two Edinburgh restaurant inspectors -- one a fatherless lout, the other a meek model-train enthusiast -- against an egotistical celebrity chef.

``Coronado'' by Dennis Lehane (William Morrow). Lehane's first book since the triumphant film of his novel ``Mystic River'' packages four previously published short stories, one new one and a play.

``The Night Gardener'' by George Pelecanos (Little, Brown). The latest from the superb D.C.-based mystery novelist features a cop and his disgraced ex-partner who come together to investigate the murder of a teen and find a connection to an unsolved 20- year-old case that has given them nightmares.

``Golden Country'' by Jennifer Gilmore (Scribner). Gilmore's exceptional debut novel is an intricate saga portraying the lives of immigrant Jews in Brooklyn -- entrepreneurs, mobsters and Broadway producers -- from Prohibition through the advent of television.

``Smonk'' by Tom Franklin (William Morrow). A Southern gothic set in 1911 and written in the style of Cormac McCarthy -- i.e., lots of blood and poetry -- in which a small Alabama town goes to war with the hideous, mule-riding rapist who has been terrorizing them for years.

``Special Topics in Calamity Physics'' by Marisha Pessl (Viking). Written in chapters reflecting a Great Books syllabus, Pessl's clever, brainy novel tells the story of Blue van Meer, a student at an elite prep school, who discovers that when a classmate and a teacher die, books don't hold all the answers to life's quandaries.

``Pound for Pound'' by F.X. Toole (Ecco). The only novel by the late author -- on whose short stories the film ``Million Dollar Baby'' was based -- offers the gritty, redemptive tale of an elderly L.A. fight trainer and a talented Hispanic boxer from Texas who comes under his tutelage.

``The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters'' by Gordon Dahlquist (Bantam). A sprawling, bawdy beach tome, featuring a Victorian- era Caribbean maiden who ventures to a nameless European city to search for her fiance who disappeared and finds herself subsumed into a puzzling world of hedonism and intrigue.

``The Expected One'' by Kathleen McGowan (Touchstone). Originally self-published, this thriller picks up where ``The Da Vinci Code'' left off. It stars journalist Maureen Pascal, who goes in search of a gospel written by her ancestor, Mary Magdalene and, ta-da, uncovers a mystery involving historical figures, from Leonardo to, improbably, Jean Cocteau.

``Knights of the Black and White: Book One of the Templar Trilogy'' by Jack Whyte (Putnam). The first of a series set in the 11th century that follows the rise and fall of the Knights Templar, focusing on Sir Hugh de Payens, a Crusader who in this volume fights for control of Jerusalem and secretly pursues the mysteries buried under the Temple Mount.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)