Mastermind
How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
by Maria Konnikova (Viking)
In the BBC show “Sherlock,” the camera follows Holmes’ observations by filming exactly where his eyes go. Author Konnikova (a fan of the show) takes this one step further in her first book, a treatise on how the Watsons of the world can smarten up. The how-to guide gives us “brain attics,” mindful exercises, ideas culled from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original works and cutting-edge psych research to help shape our brains to think like literature’s most clever detective.
Kill Anything That Moves
The Real American War in Vietnam
by Nick Turse (Henry Holt)
In a coincidence of timing, as Turse’s attack on American conduct in the Vietnam War comes out, that war is in the news thanks to the president’s cabinet nominations of Vietnam veterans John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. Turse (“The Complex”) contends the My Lai massacre was far from the only war crime American troops committed. Based on 10 years of research in Pentagon archives and interviews with Vietnamese survivors and American vets, he paints an ugly and graphic picture of the war.
American Tropic
by Thomas Sanchez (Knopf)
The dark side of the Sunshine State? On the job, tough-talking police detective Luz Zamora must track down a voodoo assassin, corrupt developers and eco-terrorists. But that’s par for the course in “Mile Zero” author Sanchez’s Key West, Fla., adventure. On the all-female home front, her beautiful partner, Joan, and two teenage daughters keep Luz on her toes. As does a local disbarred lawyer-turned-eco-shock jock. And hurricane season isn’t over yet in this atmospheric page turner. Batten down the hatches!
Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker
by Jennifer Chiaverini (Delacorte Press )
Here’s a part of Lincoln’s life that wasn’t addressed in the the 12-time Oscar-nominated movie. In her latest novel, Chiaverini, author of the bestselling Elm Creek Quilts series, pieces together the story of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and Lizzie Keckley, a former slave who became Mrs. Lincoln’s seamstress and confidante. After the president’s assassination, Keckley created the Mary Todd Lincoln quilt and also a scandalous memoir. A new spin on the story.
Elimination Night
by Anonymous (New Harvest)
A scathing tell-all from a nameless author with self-described “firsthand knowledge” of a “top TV talent show” — exposes the inner-workings of a thinly veiled singing competition through the eyes of a lowly production assistant named Sasha King. King dreams of writing a novel but spends her days rigging the results and managing difficult egomaniac judges (the aging Lothario rocker and the big-bummed/small-brained diva). Any similarities to the real-life season 10 of “American Idol” and judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez are only in the minds of readers, since “any similarity to any persons living or dead . . . is coincidental.” Sure.
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