New novels are hitting the bookshelves. So far, there are new novels from familiar names, and some from not so familiar names.

Stuart Woods is out with his thirty-somethingest novel Beverly Hills Dead. (It's a sequel.)

(From the publisher's web site: http://us.penguingroup.com). Rick Barron, a former Beverly Hills cop, has risen to head of production of Centurion Pictures, and he's at the top of his game. But tensions are high in Hollywood, and when Rick's friend Sidney Brooks, a successful screenwriter, receives a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee, Rick isn't surprised. The witch hunt is spreading, and those under investigation are Rick's closest friends-even his wife, the glamorous starlet Glenna Gleason. Set in a time of suspicion and uncertainty, Beverly Hills Dead is Stuart Woods's best novel yet-a fast-paced and sexy thriller full of the nail-biting twists and startling turns that Woods fans always expect.

Janet Evanovich's new novel Plum Lucky is out in hardcover.

From the publisher's web site (www.stmartins.com). Looking to get lucky? Stephanie Plum is back between-the-numbers and she's looking to get lucky in an Atlantic City hotel room, in a Winnebago, and with a brown-eyed stud who has stolen her heart. Stephanie Plum has a way of attracting danger, lunatics, oddballs, bad luck . . . and mystery men. And no one is more mysterious than the unmentionable Diesel. He's back and hot on the trail of a little man in green pants who's lost a giant bag of money. Problem is, the money isn't exactly lost. Stephanie's Grandma Mazur has found it, and like any good Jersey senior citizen, she's hightailed it in a Winnebago to Atlantic City and hit the slots. With Lula and Connie in tow, Stephanie attempts to bring Grandma home, but the luck of the Irish is rubbing off on everyone: Lula's found a job modeling plus-size lingerie. Connie's found a guy. Diesel's found Stephanie. And Stephanie has found herself in over her head with a caper involving thrice-stolen money, a racehorse, a car chase, and a bad case of hives. Plum Lucky is an all-you-can-eat buffet of thrills, chills, shrimp cocktail, plus-size underwear, and scorching hot men. It's a between-the-numbers treat no Evanovich fan will want to miss!

John Grisham's The Appeal is on the stands.

(From the publisher's web site: www.randomhouse.com) The Appeal is a powerful, timely, and shocking story of political and legal intrigue, a story that will leave readers unable to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the same way ever again. In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town's water supply, causing the worst "cancer cluster" in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it. The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice.

Sue Grafton has arrived at the letter T for her latest Kinsey Millhone Mystery, T is for Trespass and it instantly shot to number one on the New York Times best-selling hardcover fiction list. (What will she do when she gets to Z? AA is for . . . )

(From Sue Grafton's web site: www.suegrafton.com) In what may be her most unsettling novel to date, Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass is also her most direct confrontation with the forces of evil. Beginning slowly with the day-to-day life of a private eye, Grafton suddenly shifts from the voice of Kinsey Millhone to that of Solana Rojas, introducing readers to a chilling sociopath. Rojas is not her birth name. It is an identity she cunningly stole, an identity that gives her access to private caregiving jobs. The true horror of the novel builds with excruciating tension as the reader foresees the awfulness that lies ahead. The suspense lies in whether Millhone will realize what is happening in time to intervene. Though set in the late eighties, T is for Trespass could not be more topical: identity theft; elder abuse; betrayal of trust; the breakdown in the institutions charged with caring for the weak and the dependent. It reveals a terrifying but all-too-real rip in the social fabric.

Dean Koontz is out with another thriller, The Darkest Evening of the Year and this one even has a dog in it.

(From the publisher's web site: www.randomhouse.com) Amy Redwing has dedicated her life to the southern California organization she founded to rescue abandoned and endangered golden retrievers. Among dog lovers, she's a legend for the risks she'll take to save an animal from abuse. Among her friends, Amy's heedless devotion is often cause for concern. To widower Brian McCarthy, whose commitment she can't allow herself to return, Amy's behavior is far more puzzling and hides a shattering secret. No one is surprised when Amy risks her life to save Nickie, nor when she takes the female golden into her home. The bond between Amy and Nickie is immediate and uncanny. Even her two other goldens, Fred and Ethel, recognize Nickie as special, a natural alpha. But the instant joy Nickie brings is shadowed by a series of eerie incidents. An ominous stranger. A mysterious home invasion. And the unmistakable sense that someone is watching Amy's every move and that, whoever it is, he's not alone. Someone has come back to turn Amy into the desperate, hunted creature she's always been there to save. But now there's no one to save Amy and those she loves.

David Baldacci's new novel Stone Cold is set in Washington (it's about a secret organization known as the Camel Club).

(From David Baldacci's web site: www.davidbaldacci.com) Oliver Stone, the leader of the mysterious group that calls itself the Camel Club, is both feared and respected by those who've crossed his path. Keeping a vigilant watch over our leaders in Washington, D.C., the Camel Club has won over some allies, but it has also earned formidable enemies-including those in power who will do anything to prevent Stone and his friends from uncovering the hidden, secret work of the government. Annabelle Conroy, an honorary member of the Camel Club, is also the greatest con artist of her generation. She has swindled forty million dollars from casino king Jerry Bagger, the man who murdered her mother. Now he's hot on her trail with only one goal in mind: Annabelle's death. But as Stone and the Camel Club circle the wagons to protect Annabelle, a new opponent, who makes Bagger's menace pale by comparison, suddenly arises.

Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is just out (to synchronize with the release of the movie).

(from the publisher's web site: www.tor-forge.com) Robert Neville may well be the last living man on Earth . . . but he is not alone. An incurable plague has mutated every other man, woman, and child into bloodthirsty, nocturnal creatures who are determined to destroy him. By day, he is a hunter, stalking the infected monstrosities through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn.

Julie Garwood's Shadow Music is also just out. Her publisher, Random House says it's about "stunning vistas, wild chieftains, treacherous glens, and steep shadows-skullduggery, betrayal, and now murder." (Need we say the Highlands are sure to be aflame with passion?)

(from the publisher's web site: www.randomhouse.com) For Princess Gabrielle of St. Biel, Scotland is a land of stunning vistas, wild chieftains, treacherous glens, and steep shadows-skullduggery, betrayal, and now murder. Prized for her exquisite beauty, the daughter of one of England's most influential barons, Gabrielle is also a perfect bargaining chip for a king who needs peace in the Highlands: King John has arranged Gabrielle's marriage to a good and gentle laird. But this marriage will never take place. For Gabrielle, everything changes in one last burst of freedom-when she and her guards come upon a scene of unimaginable cruelty. With one shot from her bow and arrow, Gabrielle takes a life, saves a life, and begins a war. Within days, the Highlands are aflame with passions as a battle royal flares between enemies old and new. Having come to Scotland to be married, Gabrielle is instead entangled in Highland intrigue. For two sadistic noblemen, underestimating Gabrielle's bravery and prowess may prove fatal. But thanks to a secret Gabrielle possesses, Colm MacHugh, the most feared man in Scotland, finds a new cause for courage. Under his penetrating gaze, neither Gabrielle's body nor heart is safe.

Also this week: the complete list of this week's NYT fiction best sellers and a discussion of recent fiction award winners, including Sara Gruen's 2007 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award for her novel Water for Elephants , Denis Johnson's National Award winning Tree of Smoke , and the surprising Booker win, The Gathering by Irish author Anne Enright. Plus this week's complete New York Times best-selling Fiction lists.

More New Releases

(From Patterson's web site: www.jamespatterson.com/) Alex Cross rejoins the DC police force to confront two of the most diabolical killers he's ever encountered: a psychotic killer who craves an audience. Just when Alex Cross's life is calming down, he is drawn back into the game to confront a criminal mastermind like no other. The elaborate murders that have stunned Washington, DC, are the wildest that Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, have ever seen. This maniac adores an audience, and stages his killings as spectacles in public settings. Alex is pursuing a genius of terror who has the whole city on edge as it waits for his next move. And the killer loves the attention, no doubt-he even sets up his own Web site and live video feed to trumpet his madness.

(From the publisher's website: http://us.penguingroup.com/) Bell has never had a challenge like this one. From Arizona to Colorado to the streets of San Francisco during its calamitous earthquake and fire, he pursues what is quickly becoming clear to him is the sharpest criminal mind he has ever encountered, and the woman who seems to hold the key to the bandit's identity. Using science, deduction, and intuition, Bell repeatedly draws near only to grasp at thin air, but at least he knows his pursuit is having an effect. Because his quarry is getting angry now, and has turned the chase back on him. The hunter has become the hunted. And soon it will take all of Isaac Bell's skills not merely to prevail . . . but to survive.

(From the book's back cover) Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table from the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies. We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes . . . Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn. Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.

There were also some less familiar names in this week's new releases:

(From the book jacket) A novel in letters, The Sylph follows Julia Grenville, a naive Welsh beauty, as she marries the older Lord Stanley and moves with him to London. Julia's letters to her sister reveal the woes of her new life - her unfaithful husband, a miscarriage, and her disillusionment with the city and its fashions. Yet, for all Julia's professed revulsion for the pretense of society life, she too gets caught up in the masquerade, taking up gambling and dabbling in her own affair. But a mysterious guardian angel, her Sylph, steps in to guide her away from depravity and toward her ultimate redemption.

(From the book jacket) Sao Paulo, 2032: A city with a neon heart. A city of countless millions. A city of breathtaking wealth and life-stealing poverty. A city watched over by angels. Constant surveillance, the tracking of your every move, the ebb and flow of your money, of your life. A city where a thief could step out of the favelas and find himself trapped in the bewildering, lethal world of illegal quantum computing. Rio de Janeiro, 2006: A city that lives on reality TV. A city of watchers and watched. A city where an ambitious TV producer could find her next big hit and lose her life. And her soul. Brazil, 2032: A country of Eden-like beauty. A country of gold and death. A country of madness and religion. A country where a Jesuit Father sent to find a rogue priest will find faith and reality taken to breaking point.

(From the book jacket) On the outskirts of a European riverport city lives a powerful woman banker, a public figure admired and hated in equal measure, who has decided to turn from the worlds of high finance and modern life to embark on a quest. Having commissioned a famous writer to undertake her "authentic" biography, she journeys through the Spanish Sierra de Gredos and the region of La Mancha to meet him. As she travels by all-terrain vehicle, bus, and finally on foot, the nameless protagonist encounters five way stations that become the stuff of her biography and the biography of the modern world, a world in which genuine images and unmediated experiences have been exploited and falsified by commercialization and by the voracious mass media. In this visionary novel, Peter Handke offers descriptions of objects, relationships, and events that teach readers a renewed way of seeing; he creates a wealth of images to replace those lost to convention and conformity. Crossing the Sierra de Gredos is, as well, a very human book of yearning and the ancient search for love, peopled with memorable characters (from multiple historical periods) and imbued with Handke's inimitable ability to portray universal, inner-worldly adventures that blend past, future, present, and dreamtime.

(From the book jacket) There are seven defining moments in a person's life. For Morris Bliss, the difficulty is in knowing which moments are defining. Morris Bliss, at thirty-five, is clamped in the jaws of New York City inertia - he wants to travel but has no money; he needs a job but has no prospects; he still shares a walk-up apartment with his father. Enter Stefani, an 18 year-old in a Catholic school uniform, and Morris's once static life quickly unravels when Stefani's father, unwittingly calls on Morris to work for him. Life becomes further entangled when his best friend is recruited by a cartel that local sex markets, and begs for Morris to save his bacon. Most importantly, Morris's father, a taciturn widower, finally reveals the truth surrounding the strange death of Morris's mother. A body at rest will remain at rest. Unless acted upon. With the agony of his inertia finally broken, Morris Bliss fights to keep his life from careening out of control. He must learn to adapt if he is to survive.

(From the book jacket) Gil Petty, the world's number one wine critic, went missing during a tasting tour of the little-known wine region of Gaillac. Four years ago, his body was discovered strung up on a cross in the vineyards of southwest France.

And more from the old favorites:

(From the book jacket) In the town of Hawkins Hollow, it's called The Seven. Every seven years, on the seventh day of the seventh month, strange things happen. It began when three young boys-Caleb, Fox, and Gage-go on a camping trip to The Pagan Stone. And twenty-one years later, it will end in a showdown between evil and the boys who have become men-and the women who love them.

(From his fansite, www.hatrack.com) Orson Scott Card offers a Christmas gift to his millions of fans with this short novel set during Ender's first years at the Battle School where it is forbidden to celebrate religious holidays. The children come from many nations, many religions; while they are being trained for war, religious conflict between them is not on the curriculum. But Dink Meeker, one of the older students, doesn't see it that way. He thinks that giving gifts isn't exactly a religious observation, and on Sinterklaas Day he tucks a present into another student's shoe. This small act of rebellion sets off a battle royal between the students and the staff, but some surprising alliances form when Ender comes up against a new student, Zeck Morgan. The War over Santa Claus will force everyone to make a choice.

(From the Stephen King web site: www.stephenking.com) Edgar Freemantle reaches a T-junction in his life's journey when a freak accident costs him his arm... and his marriage. He takes the turning marked Florida - home, as they say, of the newly wed, or nearly dead. But rather than choosing a typical holiday location, Freemantle is drawn to a beautiful, eerily remote stretch of land off Florida's West Coast: Duma Key, a tangle of banyans, palms and pines next to a deserted beach - uninhabited bar a few houses owned by an old lady named Elizabeth, once a famous patron of the arts. Encouraged by his youngest daughter, Freemantle discovers a unique talent for painting, starting with the fabulous sunsets. But soon he finds himself experiencing weird phantom pains in his missing arm. And something strange and disturbing is happening with his pictures: they are becoming predictive, even dangerous to those who buy them. Freemantle must team up with his fellow resident, Wireman, to chart his way through the increasingly disturbing mystery of Duma Key, where out-of-season hurricanes tear lives apart and a powerful undertow lures lost and tormented souls. Eventually, they will have to discover what really happened to Elizabeth's twin sisters, who disappeared in the 1920s - and the haunting secret to which this strange old lady holds the key.

While we pretty much expected Denis Johnson to win the National Book Award, the winner of the Booker this year was a surprise to most observers (Ian McEwan and Lloyd Jones were the odds-on favorites). It was won by Irish author Anne Enright for The Gathering . It's described as "a bittersweet walk down memory lane." In an interview, she said she was as surprised as anybody about her win.

Bookmark this page for continuing fiction news.

Also check out our New York Times bestsellers page. News and comments about this week's best selling fiction.

• The FictionWeek Fiction Discussion Forum

• The FictionWeek Book Discussion Forum

• The FictionWeek Agent & Publishing Discussion Forum