Texas-born Benjamin Markovits left a checkered pro basketball career (chronicled in his forthcoming autobiographical novel, Playing Days) to write fiction. Living in London with five novels behind him (including a trilogy about the life of Lord Byron), he turns his focus to Detroit and its broken neighborhood grandeur. You Don't Have to Live Like This is told by Greg "Marny" Marnier, a 35-year-old disillusioned academic whose matter-of-fact narrative style lives up to his brother's childhood description of his storytelling skills as "this and then this and then this." At a Yale reunion, Marny reconnects with classmate Robert James, who has parlayed his preppie upbringing into a dot-com fortune. James decides to invest in Detroit real estate and create a "New Jamestown" of "settlers" who will rebuild homes and parks to establish a new community. He chooses Marny to join a cadre of young pioneers who are also tired of "working harder than they wanted to, making less money, living somewhere they didn't want to live."

Tentative but idealistic, Marny resurrects a large, boarded-up house, finds a substitute teaching job and forms a new romantic relationship. But neighbors on Marny's block who had struggled to keep their homes when the city was crumbling around them are not uniformly welcoming to the swarm of young colonizers. Anger festers, harsh words fly, and guns appear. Like the utopian comradery of Lord of the Flies, James's "Starting-from-Scratch-in-America" community comes undone. Fixing Detroit is not going to happen with a pot of money and a nucleus of idealistic youth, but Markovits's story is a half-court shot that comes up nothing but net. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

A dead woman is the central character of The Love She Left Behind by British author Amanda Coe (What They Do in the Dark). The deceased is Sara, who, 35 years before her death from stomach cancer, deserted her husband and children--Nigel, then age 13, and Louise, age 10--and gave up everything to live with Patrick, a playwright for whom she was muse. Patrick never had any fondness for his stepchildren. After Sara uprooted her life for him, he paid for Nigel to attend boarding school and Louise was shipped off to live with an aunt after their birth father remarried and rejected them.

The book opens in Cornwall, in the now-dilapidated house Sara and Patrick shared. Nigel--a married, type-A lawyer and father--has little care or respect for Louise, a divorced, overweight, working-class mother of two rebellious teenagers over whom she has little control. They are faced with Patrick's irritability, drunkenness and writer's block. As the three go over details and assimilate the contents of Sara's will, it is revealed that the couple's house and the dramatic rights to Bloody Empire--a popular play Patrick wrote in the 1980s--were put in Sara's name for tax purposes. Patrick battles Nigel and Louise over the transfer of ownership, and brother and sister also lock horns.

Coe employs dark comedy to piece together and acutely observe emotional issues dealing with abandonment, loss, death and grief. The idea that we do not truly know the ones we love serves to solidify the cracked fault lines in the foundation of this thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking family saga. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Rising out of northeast Georgia's Appalachian Highlands, fictional Bull Mountain stands near Atlanta, the self-proclaimed capital of the New South, and Augusta. In Brian Panowich's arresting first novel, Bull Mountain is home to the Burroughs family, a six-generation clan of outlaws whose attachment to the land passes father to son, along with a violent distrust of outsiders. McFalls County Sheriff Clayton Burroughs, though, is the first of his family to try to go straight.

Whatever governments forbid, outlaws provide--be it poached meat and fur, moonshine, marijuana or, in the 21st century, methamphetamine. Clayton's father, Gareth, burned up in a crank cookhouse fire, his brother Buckley was ambushed and killed by the feds, and his last brother, Hal, now runs the mountain with sociopathic violence and bootleg assault rifles from a Jacksonville, Fla., biker gang. Bull Mountain is a Cain-and-Abel story of Clayton and Hal, good and evil, law and outlaws--but it is also the story of family and its tenacious hold on generations.

A road-weary singer-songwriter and professional firefighter in east Georgia, Panowich plants his Bull Mountain squarely within the niche genre of "country noir." As in the best of this lot, his minor lowlife characters are often the most entertaining. There are few women on the mountain (in the roles of either mother or whore--or both) except Clayton's wife, Kate, who serves as an anchor in his conflicted life. After Panowich's plot follows its twisting path to a surprising ending, it is clear that this is but the first of what could be a Bull Mountain run of fine cracker crime fiction. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

The most chilling aspect of K.T. Medina's debut novel, White Crocodile, is the way she blends reality and myth to create an atmospheric and disquieting crime thriller. Set in the former killing fields of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, a group of philanthropic Western landmine-clearers are hiding a secret, and as more and more villagers go missing, more and more volunteers turn up dead.

After her ex-husband died--blown to bits by a supposedly deactivated mine--Tess traveled to the killing fields to dig up both a horrific Cambodian past and her own ghosts. She's been asked to clear a particular field, when the nearby villagers whisper to her about the White Crocodile, a mythic creature stalking the Cambodian countryside like ghosts of the Khmer Rouge's victims. It's been taking their women and girls and wants the Westerners gone. Tess soon realizes that a frightening reality lurks behind the stories.

The novel's greatest strength comes in the way its accurate portrayal of mine-clearing works to supplement a much creepier undercurrent of Cambodian mythology and superstition. One is forced to wonder, when paired with such an authentic setting, whether the more unearthly happenings in the novel are equally true.

Medina spent five years in the U.K. Territorial Army working for the Royal Engineers. Her knowledge of her subject matter is exhaustive and nuanced. As a mine expert, she writes scenes built on a hair-trigger, each packed with energy and tension. Medina's writing radiates with adrenaline and to read it is to step boldly through the book's own booby-traps. --Josh Potter

It's been seven years since Reeve LeClaire, the heroine in Carla Norton's What Doesn't Kill Her, was rescued after being held prisoner as a teen by Daryl Wayne Flint, who's serving time at a psychiatric hospital in Washington State. Reeve is now a student at UC Berkeley and feeling that her life "has finally bloomed and ripened."

But a wrench is thrown into her newly idyllic world when Flint escapes and commits murder on his way to reclaim Reeve, his greatest obsession. Instead of running scared, she decides to confront the monster by teaming up with former FBI agent Milo Bender--the man who helped rescue her--to track down Flint. After spending four years in close proximity with her kidnapper, who else but Reeve would know best the inner workings of Flint's twisted mind?

Norton keeps the pacing swift in this second series installment, after The Edge of Normal. Reeve is based on a real woman the author covered as a true crime writer, and Norton compassionately details the survivor mindset--what it takes for someone to withstand years of torture in captivity and the lingering psychological effects after release. Norton also shows how the ordeal can derail the lives of survivors' loved ones.

The dialogue is stilted and expository at times, and Reeve oddly seems to be the only person among seasoned FBI agents and therapists to see the obvious when it comes to clues and Flint's intentions, but Reeve's voice and fragile courage are welcomed in crime fiction, representing those who refuse to be victims. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

At the start of Patrick Lee's Signal, an FBI agent arrives at a burned-out trailer in the Mojave Desert to find the charred bodies of four little girls in a cage.

Cut to four hours earlier, when Sam Dryden, the returning hero from Patrick Lee's Runner, is asked by a former black ops colleague to accompany her on a rush mission that commences immediately. Dryden says yes without knowing any details, other than that Claire wouldn't ask unless it was urgent.

The mission involves heading to the Mojave to save girls imprisoned in a trailer. The children disappeared years earlier without a trace but Claire suddenly knows exactly where to find them. When the mission is over, Claire explains how she knew, blowing Dryden's mind, and likely the reader's.

Claire and Dryden then find themselves hunted by a mysterious syndicate called the Group, which will kill to obtain the invention Claire used to track down the girls. The Group wants the device for an endgame that would have devastating global repercussions.

Like Runner, Signal maintains a blistering pace, but Dryden does slow down at times to watch and analyze situations before taking action. In these scenes, he resembles the creation of another author named Lee--Lee Child, that is. Dryden is like a younger Jack Reacher but his adventures have a sci-fi twist. The science can become a bit mind-bending but seems realistic and doesn't get in the plot's way. Fans of smart thrillers should tune in to this strong Signal. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

In the fall of 1802, Napoleon plots an invasion of Britain in defiance of the Treaty of Amiens. A network of English spies, including an agent known as Tidewatcher, is combing Channel ports for evidence of Bonaparte's plans. As tensions escalate, a young Englishwoman becomes the key element in the cat-and-mouse game played by both sides. Lisa Chaplin (who writes romances under the name Melissa James) weaves a complicated account of espionage, romance and adventure in The Tide Watchers.

Swept off her feet by handsome Frenchman Alain Delacorte, Lisbeth Sunderland has endured months of abuse, and eventually abandonment, at the hands of her new husband. When Duncan Aylsham (aka Tidewatcher) finds Lisbeth working in a tavern in Abbeville, he proposes an unusual bargain. Lisbeth will pose as housekeeper to the brilliant American inventor Robert Fulton, whose new submersible ship and torpedo technology could prove vital to either Britain or France. In return, Duncan promises to see Lisbeth and her infant son safely back to England.

Chaplin blends fact and fiction to create a richly layered portrait of Napoleon's France, including appearances by several historical figures: politicians, spies and Bonaparte himself. But Chaplin's fictional characters, including Lisbeth, Duncan and his brothers Alec and Cal, are far more complex and intriguing. The large cast of characters grows unwieldy at times, and one or two subplots are left dangling. But The Tide Watchers is still an ambitious, fast-paced exploration of family honor, political intrigue, love and sacrifice in a rapidly changing world. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

In French Riviera and Its Artists, part of a historical guide series from Museyon, writer and filmmaker John Baxter (Five Nights in Paris) describes the rapid development of the French Riveria from a quiet aristocratic resort area into a glittering international hotspot known for natural beauty, manmade luxury and sexual freedom. First the experimental artists came, attracted by the light and color of the region and, as always, the beautiful people followed soon after. Short chapters summarize the lives--or in many cases the declining years--of artists who lived and worked on the Riviera, beginning with Cézanne, Renoir and Matisse, and continuing with many of the most famous painters, writers, filmmakers, dancers and actors of the 20th century. A few chapters cover subjects such as the "Blue Train," crime, the Hôtel du Cap, and the casino and film industries. Each chapter has an "epilogue" with stray facts, sites of interest and relevant artworks and films.

This is a pretty little book, with a timeline, a good index and a two-page map of the region, and heavily illustrated with period photographs and small reproductions of paintings and posters.

As a guidebook, it falls short: the map is too simple for navigation, and most of the sites of interest listed don't include contact information or even exact locations. But it's an excellent resource for planning a trip or fantasizing about one, full of enticing descriptions, glamorous people and gossipy anecdotes. --Sara Catterall

In 1906, 11-year-old Tabitha Crum keeps her head down, reading her beloved Inspector Pensive mysteries to avoid the miseries of her daily life. Friendless other than a pet mouse, Pemberly, she is horribly mistreated at home and outcast at school. "Oh, Pemberly... if only life were like a book, and I could choose precisely what part I played," says Tabitha. But when she comes home from school with one of six coveted invitations to the philanthropist Countess of Windemere's house, Tabitha is thrust into the biggest mystery gripping London society. Upon arrival, Tabitha discovers that the mission of the weekend is to find the Countess's lost grandchild. It's a perfect occasion for Tabitha to employ all the detective skills she has learned from Inspector Pensive. But the weekend turns dangerous as the Countess is revealed to have an unstable, possibly homicidal personality, triggered by the occurrence of a death (how they dispose of the body may make some readers squeamish). Tabitha and the other children must work together to survive while solving the mystery. The stakes for gaining an inheritance could cost them their lives.

Jessica Lawson follows up her The Actual and Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher with another charming period piece. The writing style has the flavor of a classic English manor house mystery adapted for middle grade readers. Avid mystery fans will enjoy Tabitha's use of the investigative method. --Jessica Bushore, reviewer