Little, Brown and Company Spring/Summer '12

WHAT IT WAS

JANUARY 2012 HARDCOVER

What It Was
George Pelecanos
978-0-316-20953-3, $35.00  
Deluxe slipcover edition

Washington, D.C., 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. His former partner, Frank “Hound Dog” Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn’s turf, where a local drug addict’s been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment.

Soon both men are on the trail of a ruthless killer: Red Fury, so called for his looks and the car his girlfriend drives, but a name that fits his personality all too well. Red Fury doesn’t have a retirement plan, as Vaughn points out - he doesn’t care who he has to cross, or kill, to get what he wants. As the violence escalates and the stakes get higher, Strange and Vaughn know the only way to catch their man is to do it their own way.

Rich with details of place and time - the cars, the music, the clothes - and fueled by non-stop action, this is Pelecanos writing in the urgent, immediate, detail-rich style that won him his earliest fans and placed him firmly in the ranks of the top crime writers in America.

About the Author: George Pelecanos is an independent film producer, an essayist, the recipient of numerous international writing awards, a producer and an Emmy-nominated writer on the HBO hit series The Wire, and the author of a bestselling series of novels set in and around Washington, D.C. He currently writes for the acclaimed HBO series Treme.

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

THE BOOK OF MADNESS AND CURES

APRIL 2012 HARDCOVER

The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel
Regina O’Melveny
978-0-316-19583-6, $25.99

A brilliant debut about a woman doctor in Renaissance Venice, forced to cross Europe in search of her father.

Gabriella Mondini is a rarity in 16th century Venice: a woman who practices medicine. Her father, a renowned physician, has provided her entrée into this all-male profession, and inspired in her a shared mission to understand the secrets of the human body.

Then her father disappears and Gabriella faces a crisis: she is no longer permitted to treat her patients, women who need her desperately, without her father’s patronage. She sets out across Europe to find where—and why—he has gone.

Following clues from his occasional enigmatic letters, Gabriella crosses Switzerland, Germany, and France, entering strange and forbidding cities. She travels to Scotland, the Netherlands, and finally to Morocco.

In each new land she probes the mystery of her father’s flight, and opens new mysteries of her own. Not just mysteries of ailments and treatments, but ultimate mysteries of mortality, love, and the timeless human spirit.

Filled with medical lore and sensuous, vivid details of Renaissance life, The Book of Madness and Cures is an intoxicating and unforgettable debut.

Regina O’Melveny’s poetry has been published widely in literary journals, garnering several prizes. She grew up at the edge of pungent chaparral in La Mesa, California, and currently resides further north in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Publicity tour: Los Angeles and San Francisco.

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

NINETY DAYS: A MEMOIR OF RECOVERY

APRIL 2012 HARDCOVER

Ninety Days: A Memoir of Recovery
Bill Clegg
978-0-316-12252-8, $24.99

A suspenseful account of an addict’s journey to recovery, by a writer “as intoxicated by language as he was by crack.” (A.L. Kennedy)

The goal is 90. Just 90 clean and sober days to loosen the hold of the addiction that caused Bill Clegg to lose everything. With 73 days in rehab behind him he returns to New York and attends two or three meetings each day. It is in these refuges that he befriends essential allies, including a seemingly unshakeable veteran of sobriety named Asa, and Polly, who struggles daily with her own cycle of recovery and relapse.

At first, the support is not enough: Clegg relapses for the first time with only three days left. Written with uncompromised immediacy, Ninety Days begins where Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man ends—and tells the wrenching story of Clegg’s battle to reclaim his life. As any recovering addict knows, hitting rock bottom is just the beginning.

About the author: Bill Clegg is a literary agent in New York. He is also the author of Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man.

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

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

THE BLOOD OF HEROES

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo—and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation
James Donovan
978-0-316-05374-7, $29.99

A sweeping, action-packed saga of the legendary last stand at the Alamo, by the author of the bestseller A Terrible Glory.

On February 23, 1836, a large Mexican army led by dictator Santa Anna reached San Antonio and laid siege to about 175 Texas rebels holed up in the Alamo. The Texans refused to surrender for nearly two weeks until almost 2,000 Mexican troops unleashed a final assault.

The defenders fought valiantly—for their lives and for a free and independent Texas—but in the end, they were all slaughtered. Their ultimate sacrifice inspired the rallying cry “Remember the Alamo!” and eventual triumph.

Exhaustively researched, and drawing upon fresh primary sources in U.S. and Mexican archives, The Blood of Heroes is the entertaining and unforgettable account of this epic battle. Populated by larger-than-life characters—including Davy Crockett, James Bowie, William Barret Travis—this is a stirring story of audacity, valor, and redemption.

About the author: James Donovan is the author of the bestselling A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Big Horn—The Last Great Battle of the American West. He lives in Dallas, Texas.

Publicity tour in Texas: Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Killeen.

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

THE LIFEBOAT

APRIL 2012 HARDCOVER

The Lifeboat: A Novel
Charlotte Rogan
978-0-316-18590-5, $24.99

The sinking of an ocean liner leaves a newly married woman battling for survival in this powerful and unforgettable debut novel.

Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.

In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she’d found. Will she pay any price to keep it?

The Lifeboat is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.

April 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The Lifeboat will appeal to readers interested in that history and time period. The novel raises challenging ethical and social issues, which will provide great fodder for book clubs.

The Lifeboat was inspired by Charlotte Rogan’s childhood vacations with a family of sailors, and a criminal law text she found among her husband’s books, particularly a classic case involving survivors of a shipwreck.

About the author: Charlotte Rogan studied architecture at Princeton University, graduating in 1975. She lives in Westport, Connecticut. This is her first novel.

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

AN UNEXPECTED GUEST

APRIL 2012 HARDCOVER

An Unexpected Guest: A Novel
Anne Korkeakivi
978-0-316-19677-2, $24.99

A diplomat’s wife plans a Paris dinner that could change her future—if a terrible secret doesn’t destroy it first—in this captivating debut.

Clare Moorhouse, the American wife of a high-ranking diplomat in Paris, is arranging an official dinner crucial to her husband’s career. As she shops for fresh stalks of
asparagus and works out the menu and seating arrangements, her day is complicated by the unexpected arrival of her son and a random encounter with a Turkish man, whom she discovers is a suspected terrorist. More unnerving is a recurring face in the crowd, one that belonged to another, darker era of her life. One she never expected to see again. But it can’t be him—he’s been dead for 20 years….

Like Virginia Woolf did in Mrs. Dalloway, Anne Korkeakivi brilliantly weaves the complexities of an age into an act as deceptively simple as hosting a dinner party.

About the author: Anne Korkeakivi was born and raised in New York City, and has also lived in France, Finland, and throughout the United States. A former journalist, she currently lives in Geneva, Switzerland, with her husband and two daughters. Like her heroine, Clare, Anne Korkeakivi knows the world of foreign diplomacy—she is married to an international human rights lawyer who works at the United Nations.

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

SERVICE: A NAVY SEAL AT WAR

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

Service: A Navy SEAL at War
Marcus Luttrell with James D. Hornfischer
978-0-316-18536-3, $27.99

In October 2006, after miraculously returning from his star-crossed mission in Afghanistan, Marcus Luttrell went back to war. In six months of high-intensity urban fighting in the most dangerous city in the world, Ramadi, Iraq, he was part of one of the greatest victories in the history of the SEAL teams.

Returning home and leaving military life, Luttrell began a quest to understand how and why a rare few choose to risk their lives to serve their country. Drawing on the experiences of warriors of all generations and service branches, exploring their amazing stories, Luttrell has produced a profoundly moving testament to American courage and sacrifice. Service is both a war story for the ages and a heartfelt tribute to all who have served.

Lone Survivor, a New York Times bestseller, has netted more than one million copies in hardcover and paperback, and was propelled back on to bestseller lists after the death of Osama bin Laden.

Writer-director Peter Berg’s film adaptation of Lone Survivor is scheduled to go into production for Universal Studios in January 2012.

About the author: Marcus Luttrell became a combat-trained Navy SEAL in 2002 and served in many dangerous Special Operations assignments around the world. He lives near Huntsville, Texas.

Co-author James D. Hornfischer’s Neptune’s Inferno (Bantam, 2011) was a New York Times bestseller and his The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (Bantam, 2004) has netted more than 200,000 copies in hardcover and paperback and was chosen by The Wall Street Journal as one of the five best books on “war as soldiers know it.” He lives in Austin, Texas.

Publicity tour: Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Hood, Dallas, San Diego, Norfolk, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Pensacola

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

11TH HOUR

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

11th Hour
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
978-0-316-09749-9, $27.99

Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates the discovery of severed heads in a movie star’s garden—and a vigilante targeting the city’s most despised criminals.

Millionaire Chaz Smith is mercilessly gunned down and Detective Lindsay Boxer discovers that the murder weapon is linked to the deaths of four of San Francisco’s most untouchable criminals. And it was taken from her own department’s evidence locker. Anyone could be the killer—even her closest friends.

Lindsay is then called to the most bizarre crime scene she’s ever seen: two bodiless heads elaborately displayed in the garden of a world-famous actor. Another head is unearthed in the garden, and Lindsay realizes that the ground could hide hundreds of victims.

A reporter launches a series of vicious articles about the cases and Lindsay’s personal life is laid bare. But this time she has no one to turn to—especially not Joe. 11TH HOUR is the most shocking, most emotional, and most thrilling Women’s Murder Club novel ever.

About the author: James Patterson has had 46 #1 New York Times bestselling hardcovers. The Women’s Murder Club is the bestselling new detective series of the past decade, selling 46 million copies worldwide.

This is the eighth book in the Women’s Murder Club series co-authored by Maxine Paetro. She is a novelist and journalist. She lives with her husband in New York.

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

THE ADMIRALS: NIMITZ, HALSEY, LEAHY, and KING

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—The 5-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea
Walter R. Borneman
978-0-316-09784-0, $29.99

How America’s only five-star admirals triumphed in World War II and made the United States the world’s dominant sea power.

Only four men in American history have been promoted to the five-star rank of Fleet Admiral: William Leahy, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz, and William Halsey. These four men were the best and the brightest Annapolis produced, and together they led the U.S. Navy to victory in World War II, establishing the United States as the world’s greatest sea power.

In The Admirals, award-winning historian Walter Borneman tells their combined story in full and dramatic detail for the first time. He shows us how the four admirals revolutionized naval warfare forever with submarines and aircraft carriers, and how these men—who were both friends and rivals—worked together to ensure that the Axis fleets lay destroyed on the ocean floor at the end of World War II.

About the author: Walter R. Borneman is the author of seven works of nonfiction, including 1812, The French and Indian War, and Polk. He holds both a master’s degree in history and a law degree. He lives in Colorado.

Borneman is extremely well-respected by both popular and academic historians. He has received endorsements from Robert V. Remini, Jon Meacham, and Douglas
Brinkley. There are 60,000 copies of 1812 (HarperCollins, 2004) in print, and the paperback still sells between 5,000 and 8,000 copies every year. There are more than 30,000 copies of Borneman’s book, Polk (Random House, 2009), in print.

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

SO FAR AWAY

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

So Far Away: A Novel
Meg Mitchell Moore
978-0-316-09769-7, $25.99

The lives of a wayward teenager and a lonely archivist are unexpectedly joined through the discovery of an old diary.

Thirteen-year-old Natalie Gallagher is trying to escape: from her parents’ ugly divorce, and from the vicious cyberbullying of her former best friend.

THE 500

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

SUMMERLAND

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

THE HUNT FOR KSM

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

KINGDOM OF STRANGERS

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

THIS BRIGHT RIVER

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