Little, Brown and Company Catalog

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

The 500: A Novel
Matthew Quirk
978-0-316-19862-2, $25.99

A year ago, fresh out of Harvard Law School, Mike Ford landed his dream job at Davies Group, Washington’s most powerful consulting firm. Now, he’s staring down the barrel of a gun, pursued by two of the world’s most dangerous men. To get out, he’ll have to do all the things he thought he’d never do again: lie, cheat, steal—and this time, maybe even kill.

Mike grew up in a world of small-stakes con men and learned the trade at his father’s knee. As the Davies Group’s rising star, he rubs shoulders with “The 500,” the elite men and women who really run Washington—and the world. But peddling influence, he soon learns, is familiar work: even with a pedigree, a con is still a con.

Combining the best elements of political intrigue and heart-stopping action, The 500 calls to mind classic thrillers like The Firm and Presumed Innocent. In Mike Ford, readers will discover a new hero who learns the hard way that the higher the climb, the harder—and deadlier—the fall.

Publicity tour: Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Chicago and Kansas City.

About the author: Matthew Quirk studied history and literature at Harvard College. After graduation, he spent five years at The Atlantic reporting on crimes, private military contractors, the opium trade, terrorism prosecutions, and international gangs.

He lives outside of Washington, DC.

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

JUNE 2012 HARDCOVER

Summerland: A Novel
Elin Hilderbrand
978-0-316-09983-7, $26.99

Four juniors are driving home from a graduation party on Nantucket when Penny Alistair loses control of the car. Penny is killed; her twin brother is left in a coma. Penny’s boyfriend, Jake, and friend, Demeter, walk away from the crash, their wounds emotional, deep, and unshakable.

In the aftermath, Jake and his family move halfway around the globe, while Demeter escapes in self-destructive behavior. None of the families can truly move on, as the circumstances that led to the accident stretch all the way back to the first interactions between these four friends and their parents.

Summerland explores the bonds between individuals, families, and an entire community. Once again, Elin Hilderbrand tells a story of loss, love, and the power
of healing.

About the author: Elin Hilderbrand is a consistent New York Times bestseller and Little, Brown has more than 1.5 million copies of her books in print. Silver Girl debuted at #6 on the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover, and The Island spent over two months on the New York Times bestseller list in trade paperback.

Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket, the setting for her 10 previous novels, with her husband and their three children. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

Publicity tour: Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Houston.

Publicity contact: Michelle Aielli, michelle.aielli@hbgusa.com

MARCH 2012 HARDCOVER

The Hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer
978-0-316-18659-9, $27.99

The definitive account of the decade-long pursuit and capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the real mastermind of the worst terrorist attacks in history.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed is the most significant terrorist in captivity. On March 1, 2003, American and Pakistani intelligence agents captured him—bringing to a close one of the greatest manhunts in history.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews, many with investigators speaking for the first time and with members of KSM’s family, as well as thousands of documents, McDermott and Meyer give the first comprehensive account of the chase for KSM and what happened after he was captured, including the disruption of the global network he personally assembled.

The Hunt for KSM is a tour de force of investigative journalism and a vivid portrayal of the epic struggle to capture the most significant terrorist behind bars.

About the authors: Josh Meyer’s “Inside Al Qaeda” series that ran in the Los Angeles Times was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and he has twice been part of teams that have won the Pulitzer Prize for their security reporting. He is the former chief terrorism reporter for the Los Angeles Times and has reported on international terrorism for more than a decade. He lives in Washington, DC.

Terry McDermott worked at eight newspapers for more than 30 years, most recently for 10 years at the Los Angeles Times, where he was a national correspondent. He is the author of Perfect Soldiers (HarperCollins, 2005), and 101 Theory Drive (Pantheon, 2010). His New Yorker essay on KSM was groundbreaking.

McDermott’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Wilson Quarterly, Columbia Journalism Review, Los Angeles Times Magazine, and Pacific Magazine.

Publicity tour: New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco

Publicity contact: Carolyn O’Keefe, carolyn.okeefe@hbgusa.com

JUNE 2012 HARDCOVER

Kingdom of Strangers: A Novel
Zoë Ferraris
978-0-316-07424-7, $25.99

A riveting tale of murder and deception by the acclaimed author of City of Veils.
A secret grave is unearthed in the desert revealing the bodies of 19 women and the shocking truth that a serial killer has been operating undetected in Jeddah for more than a decade.

However, lead inspector Ibrahim Zahrani is distracted by a mystery closer to home. His mistress has suddenly disappeared, but he cannot report her missing since adultery is punishable by death. With nowhere to turn,

Ibrahim brings the case to Katya, one of the few women on the force. Drawn into both investigations, she must be increasingly careful to hide a secret of her own.
Portraying the lives of women in one of the most closed cultures in the world, award-winning author Zoë Ferraris weaves a tale of psychological suspense that delves into the dangerous territory of the Saudi underworld.

Zoë Ferraris’s previous novel, City of Veils, was a finalist for the NCIBA Book Award. Her first novel, Finding Nouf (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,2008), won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for First Fiction, was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.

About the author: Zoë Ferraris moved to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the first Gulf War to live with her then-husband and his extended family of Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins. She has an MFA from Columbia University and now lives in San Francisco.

Publicity contact: Theresa Giacopasi, theresa.giacopasi@hbgusa.com

JUNE 2012 HARDCOVER

This Bright River: A Novel
Patrick Somerville
978-0-316-12931-2, $24.99

Lauren Sheehan’s career in medicine came to a halt after a sequence of violent events abroad. Now she’s back in the safest place she knows—St. Helens, Wisconsin—cut off from career, friendship, and romance.

Ben Hanson’s aimless life bottomed out when he went to prison. But after his release, a surprising offer from his father draws him home. In Wisconsin, he finds his family fractured, still unable to face the truth behind his troubled cousin’s death a decade earlier.

As Lauren cautiously expands her world and Ben tries to unravel the mysteries of his family and himself, their paths intersect. Could each be exactly what the other needs?

A compelling family drama and a surprising love story, This Bright River confirms Patrick Somerville’s status as one of the most exciting young writers at work today.

About the author: The Cradle, Patrick Somerville’s first novel, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Selection for Summer 2009, was nominated for the First Novel Prize at the Center for Fiction, and was a favorite among critics, booksellers, and book clubs—giving Somerville a broad, dedicated group of fans.

Somerville is a writer with a rising profile: The Chicago Public Library named him the 21st Century Award recipient for 2009 (former winners include Aleksandar Hemon and Audrey Niffenegger), he published a collection of stories entitled The Universe in Miniature in Miniature (Featherproof Books, 2010), and Gail Mutrux, the Academy Award-winning producer of Rain Man, acquired film rights to The Cradle.

Patrick Somerville lives with his wife in Chicago and teaches creative writing at Northwestern University.

Publicity tour: Chicago, Milwaukee and New York

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

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JULY 2012 HARDCOVER

I, Michael Bennett
James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
978-0-316-09746-8, $27.99

A South American crime lord has brought New York the worst lawlessness and violence the city has ever seen. Police shot in the street. Judges murdered in the courtroom. Mayhem is unleashed—and the mayor demands that Detective Michael Bennett find a way to stop it.

Bennett takes his 10 kids and their beautiful nanny, Mary Catherine, out of the chaos on a much-needed vacation to upstate New York. But instead of escaping the violence, it follows them and they find themselves in the middle of another nightmare that threatens the entire family. The danger isn’t only coming from the crime lord’s killers — FBI Agent Emily Parker is back, and Bennett’s attraction to her endangers his relationship with Mary Catherine.

A no-holds-barred, pedal-to-the-floor, action-packed novel, I, Michael Bennett is James Patterson at his most thrilling best.

The Michael Bennett series is the #1 bestselling detective series ever to be set in New York.

About the authors: James Patterson is one of the bestselling authors of all time. He lives in Florida.

Michael Ledwidge is the co-author of several books with James Patterson. He lives in New York City.

Publicity Contact: Sabrina Callahan, sabrina.callahan@hbgusa.com

JULY 2012 HARDCOVER

The Violinist’s Thumb And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code
Sam Kean
978-0-316-18231-7, $25.99

In The Disappearing Spoon, bestselling author Sam Kean unlocked the mysteries of the periodic table. In The Violinist’s Thumb, he explores the wonders of the magical building block of life: DNA.

There are genes to explain crazy cat ladies, genes to explain why some people survive nuclear bombs and why other people have no fingerprints. Genes illuminate everything from JFK’s bronze skin (it wasn’t a tan) to Einstein’s genius.

They prove that Neanderthals and humans bred thousands of years more recently than any of us would feel comfortable thinking. They can even allow some people, because of the exceptional flexibility of their thumbs and fingers, to become truly singular violinists.

Kean’s vibrant storytelling once again makes science entertaining, explaining human history and whimsy while showing how DNA will influence our species’ future.

About the author: Sam Kean’s work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate, the New York Post, and New Scientist. He lives in Washington, DC. Kean’s The Disappearing Spoon received great critical acclaim and success. It debuted at #12 on the New York Times bestseller list and is in its 10th printing; the paperback is also a New York Times bestseller.

In 2009, Kean was a runner-up for the National Association of Science Writers’ Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for best science writer under the age of 30, and he was a Middlebury Environmental Journalism fellow.

Publicity tour: Boston, Washington, DC, Seattle and Philadelphia

Publicity contact: Carolyn O’Keefe

AUGUST 2012 HARDCOVER

Where’d You Go, Bernadette: A Novel
Maria Semple
978-0-316-20427-9, $25.99

A hilarious and original novel about a family in crisis after the disappearance of its brilliant, misanthropic matriarch.

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.

A seasoned comic writer who wrote for Arrested Development and Mad About You, Semple has constructed a wholly original mother/daughter story that recalls the novels of Jennifer Egan, Aimee Bender, and Lorrie Moore.

About the author: Maria Semple garnered nationwide praise for This One is Mine from reviewers and writers like Tom Perrotta, Helen Fielding, and Gigi Levangie Grazer.

Semple lives with her family in Seattle.

Publicity tour: Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle

Publicity contact: Nicole Dewey, nicole.dewey@hbgusa.com

JULY 2012 HARDCOVER

Dare Me: A Novel
Megan Abbott
978-0-316-09777-2, $24.99

Addy Hanlon and Beth Cassidy are the cheerleaders all the other girls fear and admire. But everything changes when the new coach arrives. Cool and commanding, Coach French seems perfect in every way, a charismatic presence who overturns the girls’ established pecking order yet manages to gain their fierce allegiance.

Then a shocking event upends their fragile peace, and a police investigation begins circling in on the coach and her squad. As the girls’ season moves towards its finale, the stakes grow higher, and more dangerous, and Addy and Beth are forced to ask where their loyalties lie.

Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott, writing with what Tom Perrotta has hailed as “total authority and an almost desperate intensity,” offers up a Fight Club among cheerleaders, a harrowing exploration into the dark heart of the all-American girl.

About the author: Megan Abbott won the 2008 Edgar and Barry Awards for her third novel, Queenpin. Her novel Bury Me Deep was a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award, the Hammett Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was also shortlisted for an Edgar Award in 2006, for Die a Little. Her most recent hardcover, The End of Everything, was an Indie Next pick; was featured in Time, the New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly; and won advance praise from bestselling authors Tom Perrotta, Kate Atkinson, and Tana French. It will be published in trade paperback in 7/12.

Abbott received her PhD in English and American Literature from New York University in 2000. She lives in New York City.

Publicity tour: New York, Boston, Phoenix, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

AUGUST 2012 HARDCOVER

What in God’s Name
Simon Rich
978-0-316-13373-9, $23.99

God, bored, decides that Earth has had its day—unless two idealistic angels can make a miracle happen.

Welcome to Heaven, Inc., where the founder and CEO has been phoning it in, concentrating more on improving his golf game than ending famines. Craig and Eliza (Department of Miracles) are two of the only hard-working angels in the entire operation, uncapping city fire hydrants on hot days and revealing lost keys in snowbanks.

When God decides to retire, he announces that he’ll destroy Earth—unless Craig and Eliza can answer one prayer before the scheduled Armageddon. Their challenge: to make the two most socially awkward people on the planet fall in love. As the doomsday clock ticks down, and their chosen lovebirds repeatedly ignore every chance for happiness the angels throw their way, Craig and Eliza move Heaven and Earth to rescue them—and the rest of us, too.

About the author: Simon Rich is a graduate of Harvard University. He is the author of Ant Farm, Free-Range Chickens, and Elliott Allagash, and he has written scripts for Lorne Michaels and Judd Apatow. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

AUGUST 2012 HARDCOVER

Ghost Dances
Proving Up on the Great Plains
Josh Garrett-Davis
978-0-316-19984-1, $27.99

A gifted young writer takes a singular journey back to his native Midwestern American Plains. Growing up in South Dakota, Josh Garrett-Davis always knew he would leave. But as a young adult, he kept going back—in dreams and reality and by way of books. With this beautifully written narrative about a seemingly empty but actually rich and complex place, he has reclaimed his childhood, his unusual family—and the Great Plains.

Among the subjects and people who bring his Plains to life are the destruction and resurgence of the American bison; his great-great-grandparents’ 20-year sojourn in Nebraska as homesteaders; Native American “Ghost Dancers,” who attempted to ward off destruction by supernatural means before the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee; the political allegory to be found in The Wizard of Oz; and current attempts by ecologists to “rewild” the Plains. Ghost Dances is a fluid combination of memoir and history and reportage that reminds us that our roots matter—and might even be inspiring and fascinating.

About the author: Josh Garrett-Davis has an MFA from Columbia University and is currently a PhD student in American history at Princeton. He was raised in South Dakota.

Publicity contact: Elizabeth Garriga, elizabeth.garriga@hbgusa.com

AUGUST 2012 HARDCOVER

Growing Up Brave: Expert Strategies for Helping Your Child Overcome Fear, Stress, and Anxiety
Donna B. Pincus, PhD
978-0-316-12560-4, $25.99

A practical, hands-on approach to helping children overcome anxiety. With social and academic pressures at an all-time high, one in five children today suffers from a diagnosed anxiety disorder and many others go undiagnosed. More children than ever are being prescribed psychotropic drugs. In GROWING UP BRAVE, nationally recognized childhood anxiety expert Dr. Donna Pincus demonstrates that excessive anxiety is manageable and even preventable when parents learn how to identify and understand it, and respond by using convenient and simple parenting techniques. The book’s effective tools teach parents how to promote a warm, secure attachment with their child in only five minutes a day, develop routines that help ward off anxiety, implement Dr. Pincus’s “bravery ladder,” and much more. Growing Up Brave is an empowering and valuable guide that will leave parents equipped to help their child regain confidence and happiness.

About the author: Dr. Donna B. Pincus is the Director of Research of the Child and Adolescent Treatment Program at the Center for Anxiety Related Disorders (CARD) at Boston University. She lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Publicity Contact: Michelle Aielli, michelle.aielli@hbgusa.com

AUGUST 2012 PAPAERBACK

The Omega-3 Effect: Everything You Need to Know About the Miracle Nutrient for Living Longer, Happier, and Healthier
William Sears, MD
978-0-316-19684-0, $10.99

From one of the most trusted names in family healthcare—-a guide to the many health benefits of omega-3s.
We all want to live as healthfully as possible. In THE OMEGA-3 EFFECT, Dr. William Sears turns his attention to the critical role that omega-3s play in the body. Dr. Sears takes readers through each body system—including the brain, heart, joints, skin, and immune system—and demonstrates how omega-3s are essential to each.

THE OMEGA-3 EFFECT also offers tips on what foods and supplements readers should incorporate into their diet, as well as delicious recipes. Written in the wise, accessible tone that has made his books long-term bestsellers, Dr. Sears offers a practical and science-based approach to living a more healthful life.

About the author: William Sears, MD, has practiced pediatrics for more than 40 years, and is an associate clinical professor at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. He is the author of more than 30 books that have collectively sold more than two million copies and lives with his wife in Southern California.

Publicity Contact: Justin Levine, justin.levine@hbgusa.com

2012 Trade Paperback

Tomato Red: A Novel
Daniel Woodrell
Foreword by Megan Abbott
978-0-316-20621-1, $14.99

“Woodrell’s down-home version of Chandleresque prose lends a near-Biblical dignity to the criminal doings.” —THE NEW YORKER

2012 Trade Paperback

The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel
Daniel Woodrell
Foreword by Dennis Lehane
978-0-316-20614-3, $14.99

“Woodrell has achieved near mastery of style: language, plot, characterization, and theme mesh with a seamless power.” —NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW.

2012 Trade Paperback

Give Us A Kiss: A Novel
Daniel Woodrell
Foreword by Pinckney Benedict
978-0-316-20620-4, $14.99

“He celebrates blood kin, home country, and hot sex
in this rich, funny, headshakingly original novel.
Woodrell is a ladystinger of a writer.” — E. ANNIE PROULX

2012 Trade Paperback

Woe to Live On: A Novel
Foreword by Ron Rash
978-0-316-20616-7, $14.99

“A renegade Western that celebrates the genre while
bushwhacking its most cherished traditions.”
—CHICAGO TRIBUNE

About the author: Daniel Woodrell was born in the Missouri Ozarks, left school and enlisted in the marines at 17, received his bachelor’s degree at age 27, graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and spent a year on a Michener Fellowship.

He is the author of nine works of fiction, including the novel Winter’s Bone, the film adaptation of which won the Grand Jury Prize for best picture at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and received five Academy Award nominations.

The Death of Sweet Mister received the 2011 Clifton Fadiman Medal from the Center for Fiction, an award created “to honor a book that deserves renewed recognition and a wider readership.” Woodrell lives in the Ozarks near the Arkansas line with his wife, Katie Estill.

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FEBRUARY 2012 HARDCOVER 

Private Games
James Patterson and Mark Sullivan
978-0316-20682-2, $27.99

Private, the world’s most renowned investigation firm, has been commissioned to provide security for the 2012 Olympic games in London. Its agents are the smartest, fastest, and most technologically advanced in the world, and 400 of them have been transferred to London to protect over 10,000 competitors who represent more than 200 countries.

The opening ceremony is still hours away when Private investigator and single father of twins, Nigel Steele, is called to the scene of a ruthless murder. A high-ranking member of the games’ organizing committee and his mistress have been killed. It’s clear that it wasn’t a crime of passion, but one of precise calculation and execution.

Newspaper reporter Karen Pope receives a letter from a person who calls himself Cronus claiming responsibility for the murders. He also proclaims that he will restore the Olympics to their ancient glory and will destroy all who have corrupted the games with lies, cheating, and greed. Karen immediately hires Private to examine the letter, and she and Nigel uncover a criminal genius who won’t stop until he’s ended the games for good. “America’s #1 storyteller” (Forbes) delivers an exhilarating, action-packed thriller that brings the splendor and emotion of the Olympics to a wildly powerful climax.
           
About the author: James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson’s books have sold more than 240 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past 25 years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women’s Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series of all time, featuring Detective Michael Bennett. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

Mark Sullivan is the author of eight mystery and suspense novels, including Rogue, forthcoming in October 2012. He lives in Montana with his wife and sons.

Publicity contact: Sabrina Callahan, sabrina.callahan@hbgusa.com

OCTOBER 2011 HARDCOVER

Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir
John Paul Stevens
978-0-316-19980-3, $24.99  

When he resigned last June, Justice Stevens was the third longest serving Justice in American history (1975-2010)—only Justice William O. Douglas, whom Stevens succeeded, and Stephen Field have served on the Court for a longer time.

In Five Chiefs, Justice Stevens captures the inner workings of the Supreme Court via his personal experiences with the five Chief Justices—Fred Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist, and John Roberts—that he interacted with. He reminisces of being a law clerk during Vinson’s tenure; a practicing lawyer for Warren; a circuit judge and junior justice for Burger; a contemporary colleague of Rehnquist; and a colleague of current Chief Justice John Roberts. Along the way, he will discuss his views of some the most significant cases that have been decided by the Court from Vinson, who became Chief Justice in 1946 when Truman was President, to Roberts, who became Chief Justice in 2005.

Packed with interesting anecdotes and stories about the Court, Five Chiefs is an unprecedented and historically significant look at the highest court in the United States.

About the author: John Paul Stevens served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1970-1975. President Ford nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat December 19, 1975. Justice Stevens retired from the Supreme Court on June 29, 2010.

Publicity tour: Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.

Publicity contact: Liz Garriga, elizabeth.garriga@hbgusa.com.

DECEMBER 2011 HARDCOVER  

Inside Seal Team Six: My Life and Missions with America’s Elite Warriors
Don Mann with Ralph Pezzullo
978-0-316-20431-6, $27.99  

Don Mann offers an indispensable, ground-breaking narrative of what it takes to make a SEAL, and to break a man—very close to the same thing. Pushing himself and his men to extremes, Mann suffered intensely for country, and here he’ll describe his life in the SEALS and SEAL Team 6, his training and the training he conducted, and the operations that took him within  an inch of his life. This will be the most up-to-date, comprehensive book on SEAL Team 6.

There are 6500 Navy SEALS, but only a select few reach the most rigorous, effective team of all, so secret that its operations are only beginning to be understood: known as SEAL Team  6, it’s one of the United States’s two secretive Tier One counter-terrorism and Special Missions Units; the other such group is 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force).

SEAL Team 6 trains and operates over 300 days a year away from home. They have been secretly involved in every major US military operation since their founding in World War II. They are the only unit qualified to operate in all terrains. And most recently, they were responsible for the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden.

On air, on land, at sea—the SEALS are the dominant, misunderstood, and secrecy-shrouded American special operations unit, and here, they come to vivid life.
            
About the author: Don Mann (CWO3, USN) has for the last 30 years been associated with the Navy SEALS either as a platoon member, assault team member, boat crew leader, or advanced training officer; and more recently program director preparing civilians to go to BUD/s (SEAL Training). Up until 1998 he was on active duty with SEAL Team 6. Since his retirement, he has deployed to the Middle East on numerous occasions in support of the war against terrorism. Many of the active duty SEALs on SEAL Team 6 are the same guys he taught how to shoot, conduct ship and aircraft takedowns, and trained in urban, arctic, desert, river and jungle warfare, as well as Close Quarters Battle (CQB) and  Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT). He has suffered two broken backs, two cases of high altitude pulmonary edema, and multiple other broken bones, in training or service. He has been captured twice during operations and lived to talk about it.

Ralph Pezzullo is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning playwright, screenwriter and journalist. His books include Jawbreaker (with CIA operative Gary Berntsen).

Publicity contact: Nicole Dewey, nicole.dewey@hbgusa.com and Theresa Giacopasi, theresa.giacopasi@hbgusa.com.

SEPTEMBER 2011 HARDCOVER

The Art of Fielding: A Novel
Chad Harbach
978-0-316-12669-4, $24.99

The anticipated debut from n+1 cofounder Chad Harbach: An unforgettable novel about the glory of youth and five lives on the brink of enormous change.

At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for the big leagues until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people are upended. Henry’s life’s purpose is called into question. Guert Affenlight, the college’s president, has fallen helplessly, unexpectedly in love. Owen Glass, Henry’s gay roommate, becomes swept up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the team captain, realizes he guides Henry’s career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert’s daughter, returns to Westish to start a new life after an ill-fated marriage. As the season counts down to its climax, these five confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets, and help one another to find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence, and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment—to oneself and to others.

About the author: Chad Harbach grew up in Wisconsin, graduated from Harvard and received an MFA in fiction writing at the University of Virginia. He lives in Virginia.

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

SEPTEMBER 2011 HARDCOVER

Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State
Dana Priest and William Arkin
978-0-316-18221-8, $29.99

The top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, or exactly how many agencies duplicate work being done elsewhere. The result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger. In Top Secret America, award-winning reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin uncover the enormous consequences of this invisible universe of over 1,300 government facilities; nearly 2,000 outside contractors; and more than 850,000 people granted “Top Secret” security clearance. A landmark exposé of a new, secret “Fourth Branch” of American government, Top Secret America is sure to spark national and international alarm.

About the author: Dana Priest is an investigative reporter for the Washington Post and has received multiple Pulitzer prizes.

William M. Arkin has been a columnist and reporter with the Washington Post since 1998. He lives in Vermont.

Publicity tour: New York, Washington, DC and Pittsburgh.

Publicity contact: Nicole Dewey, nicole.dewey@hbgusa.com and Carolyn O’Keefe, carolyn.okeefe@hbgusa.com