New Release roundup 21 June 2010

Despite the fact that my bookshelves are stacked fit to bursting, and I can barely make my way past the towers of books around my lounge room table, Im always on the lookout for new and interesting reads. Here are some new releases that have caught my eye this week:

Little Hands Clapping by Dan Rhodes

Blurb: In a room above a bizarre German museum, and far from the prying eyes of strangers, lives the Old Man. Caretaker of the museum by day, by night he enjoys the sound of silence, broken only by the occasional mysterious thud from a room upstairs. Little Hands Clapping brings together the Old Man with the respectable Doctor Ernst Frohlicher, his greedy dog Hans and a cast of grotesque and hilarious townsfolk, all of whose lives are thrown together as the town uncovers a crime so outrageous that it will shock the world.

From its sinister opening to its explosive denouement, Little Hands Clapping blends lavishly entertaining storytelling with Rhodes's macabre imagination, entrancing originality and magical touch.

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Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland

Blurb: Emily Tempest is small, black, as snaky as a taipan's tooth and is the woman least likely ever to embark on a career in policing. But her old mate Superintendent Tom MacGillivray has persuaded her to sign on as the Aboriginal Community Police Officer for the outback (not to mention throwback) township of Bluebush.

Then Tom is hospitalised and Emily finds herself working for a new bloke instead: an east-coast ring-in, a martinet called Cockburn. Being allergic both to authority and to keeping her big mouth shut, Emily is immediately at odds with the new boss. And the death at the Green Swamp Well Roadhouse only complicates things. Cockburn thinks it's a simple case of two old drunks and a hammer. Emily's not convinced.

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Dog Boy by Eva Hornung

Blurb: Four-year-old Romochka is alone, the apartment dark and empty. His mother vanished some time ago, and now his uncle too has not returned. The whole building is empty and cold. Snow begins to fall outside, but after a few days, hunger drives Romochka out into the Moscow cold, his mothers voice ringing in his ears. Dont talk to strangers. Overlooked by passers-by, he stands, shivering and indecisive, on the threshold. Suddenly he sees a large, yellow dog loping past and, on impulse, he follows her to her lair in an abandoned church outside the city. During the long, icy winter and the seasons that follow, Romochka changes from a boy into something far wilder. Under the watchful gaze of his dog-mother, he becomes part of the clan. He learns to see in the dark, eat anything the dogs find, attack enemies with tooth and claw, and understand the strict pack code. When he begins to hunt with his dog siblings in the city, he is drawn inexorably back into the world of human beings. It is only a matter of time before the authorities take an interest Eva Hornungs extraordinary tale of a latter-day Romulus in post-perestroika Russia is a devastating story of childhood, survival, family and life on the harsh edges of society.

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Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco

Blurb: It begins with a body. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River taken from the world is the controversial lion of Philippine literature. Missing, too, is the only manuscript of his final book meant to rescue him from obscurity by exposing the corrupt roots of power behind the Filipino ruling families. His student, Miguel, investigates, journeying home from a city still in shock from terrorist attacks to a country caught between reckless decay and desperate progress. To understand his mentors death, Miguel scours the life, charting Salvadors trajectory via his poetry, stories, interviews, novels, and memoirs. The literary fragments become patterns become stories become epic: a generations-long saga of revolution, familial duty, political intrigue, and a peoples enduring struggle against their own worst tendencies.

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iBoy by Kevin Brooks

Blurb: Before the attack, sixteen-year-old Tom Harvey was just an ordinary boy. But now fragments of a shattered iPhone are embedded in his brain and its having an extraordinary effect Because now Tom has powers. The ability to know and see more than he could ever imagine. And with incredible power comes knowledge and a choice. Seek revenge on the violent gangs that rule his estate and assaulted his friend Lucy, or keep quiet? Tom has control when everything else is out of control. But its a dangerous price to pay. And the consequences are terrifying

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Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa

Blurb: In a crumbling, sea-side hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet, seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother fusses over the off-season customers. When one night, they are forced to eject a middle-aged man and a prostitute from their room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a long seduction.

The mysterious man lives quietly as a translator on an island off the coast. A widower, there are murmurs around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him, but as he initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, she finds herself also attracted to his earnest young nephew. As Mari's mother and the police begin to close in on the illicit affair, events move to a dramatic climax.

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The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie OFarrell

Blurb: When the bohemian, sophisticated Innes Kent turns up by chance on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait any longer for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart of the 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life for herself, with Innes at her side. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child. Elina, a painter, struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with sense of herself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood, memories that dont tally with his parents version of events. As Ted begins to search for answers, so an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed, separated by fifty years, but connected in ways that neither could ever have expected.

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Captivate by Carrie Jones

Blurb: Zara and her friends knew they hadnt solved the pixie problem for good. Far from it. The kings needs grow deeper every day hes stuck in captivity, while his control over his people becomes weaker. Its made him vulnerable. And now theres a new king in town. A turf war is imminent. The new pixie king is moving in quickly. He swears that he and Zara are destined to be together, that hes one of the good guys. Zara isnt so sure. Despite herself, she wants to trust the new king, but theres a lot more than her relationship with boyfriend Nick at stake. Its her life and his.

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Beyond Evie by Rebecca Burton

Blurb: Charlotte doesn?t talk about herself much. Her sister, Amy, is leaving her to start a whole new life, and since her dad?s death Charlotte and her mother don?t seem to talk either. Her friends are great, but they?ve got their own problems, so how can she tell them about what happened last year? How can she tell them about Evie?

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