The Power Game, by Joseph S. Nye Jr. (PublicAffairs, Dec.). A novel of Washington's corridors of power, by the former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts (St. Martin's, Oct.). A fugitive from a maximum security prison in Australia makes his way to the teeming underworld of Bombay.
The Vagabonds, by Nicholas Delbanco (Warner, Nov.). Ford, Edison and Firestone leave a large fortune to the Saperstones -- hush money for a night of excess with the beneficiaries' grandmother.
Historical Fiction
The First Desire, by Nancy Reisman (Pantheon, Sept.). An eldest child vanishes at the cusp of the Great Depression -- and the whole family tree creaks and tumbles.
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson (FSG, Nov.). By the author of Housekeeping, an epic of three generations of preachers in a single American family.
Life Mask, by Emma Donoghue (Harcourt, Sept.). Dangerous liaisons in 18th-century London; by the author of Slammerkin.
Love and Honor, by Randall Wallace (Simon & Schuster, Sept.). A Virginia cavalryman travels to Russia on a clandestine mission for Benjamin Franklin.
The Red Queen, by Margaret Drabble (Harcourt, Oct.). On the eve of her trip to Korea, a woman receives a mysterious package from Seoul: the ancient memoir of a crown princess.
Shoulder the Sky, by Anne Perry (Ballantine, Sept.). The story of a World War I British army chaplain who uncovers the murder of a war correspondent -- by one of the soldiers in his care.
Something Dangerous, by Penny Vincenzi (Overlook, Oct.). Born into a publishing empire, the beautiful Lytton twins suddenly find their charmed lives threatened by world events.
To the Last Man, by Jeff Shaara (Ballantine, Oct.). Shaara leaves behind the American Revolution to give us this view from the trenches as America enters World War I.
Mysteries and Suspense
Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality, by John le Carré (Walker, Oct.). George Smiley, as he first appeared four decades ago -- a reissue of le Carré's first works.
Metro Girl, by Janet Evanovich (HarperCollins, Nov.). Cuban contraband, South Beach bimbos, a missing boat captain -- and the bored Baltimore girl who stumbles into it all.
Night Fall, by Nelson DeMille (Warner, Nov.). An illicit tryst on a beach turns into another kind of obsession when an aircraft explodes overhead.
Skeleton Man, by Tony Hillerman (HarperCollins, Nov.). A new chapter in the Leaphorn and Chee adventures.
A Taint in the Blood, by Dana Stabenow (St. Martin's, Sept.). Twenty years after a fire that claimed her house and brothers, a woman hires Kate Shugak to clear her mother's name.
Whiteout, by Ken Follett (Dutton, Nov.). A canister containing a deadly virus goes missing just as a blizzard descends.
The Winds of Change, by Martha Grimes (Viking, Sept.). A dead girl, a well-known financier, a house of horrors and . . . Superintendent Richard Jury.
Wolves Eat Dogs, by Martin Cruz Smith (S&S, Nov.). Moscow detective Arkady Renko scouts out the dread Chernobyl.
Poetry
American Smooth, by Rita Dove (Norton, Sept.). Her first collection in five years.
Blue Iris, by Mary Oliver (Beacon, Oct.). New work from a poet of the pastoral.
The Displaced of Capital, by Anne Winters (Univ. of Chicago, Oct.). The long-awaited follow-up to The Key to the City.
Inner Voices, by Richard Howard. (FSG, Oct.). Selected poems.
The Prodigal, by Derek Walcott (FSG, Oct.). A lifetime of journeys.
